David Southern studied at Christ Church, Oxford [M.Phil, M.A., D.Phil], and at Bonn University. He is a Fellow of both the Chartered Institute of Taxation [FTII] and the Institute of Indirect Taxation [FIIT].

Unusually for a barrister, he has experience of working both for H.M. Revenue & Customs and for a large company (Lloyds TSB).

His principal specialisation are in tax litigation, corporate debt and VAT.  He has extensive experience in all fields of of tax litigation, including investigation cases, ande excise duty cases.   His advisory practice covers a wide range of debt structures, infrastructure projects and PFI work.  He is the author of Taxation of Loan Relationships and Derivative Contracts (Bloomsbury Professional).  This has already gone through eight editions, and  the 9th edition will appear in 2011.  This is the  standard work in the field.

He was leading counsel in the House of Lords in :Fleming (t/a Bodycraft) v R & C Comrs [2008] STC 325, described by the Financial Times as 'the VAT case of the decade', and leading to VAT repayments of some £13.1 billion.  He was sole counsel in BAA v R & C Comrs [2010] SFTD 587 which has a major impact on VAT on share transactions.

He has appeared as leading or sole counsel in cases in:

• House of Lords
• Court of Appeal
• High Court
• European Court of Justice
• Employment Appeal Tribunal
• Companies Court
• Lands Tribunal
• Leasehold Valuation Tribunal
• First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber)
• Special Commissioners of Income Tax
• General Commissioners of Income Tax
• VAT  & Duties Tribunal
• County Court
• Bankruptcy Tribunal
  
  He is a member of the Revenue Bar Association, International Fiscal Association, VAT Practitioners' Group, Chartered Institute of Taxation, Institute of Indirect Taxation and European Association of Tax Law Professors.
  
  He is a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn.  He was Treasurer of the General Council of the Bar from 2005 to 2007.
  
  He is  Director of the School  of Tax Law in the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary, University of London.
  
  He was UK National Reporter at the International Fiscal Association Conference 2006 in Amsterdam on the subject of ‘The tax consequences of restructuring of indebtedness (debt work-outs)’
  
  In 2006 he gave the Victor Durkacz Memorial Lecture at the annual conference of the VAT Practitioners’ Group.