After gaining a double first in politics and philosophy and the Supreme Court Prize in Law from Melbourne University, Charles Sampford won a Commonwealth Scholarship to Oxford to pursue his studies in legal philosophy being awarded a DPhil in 1984. He returned to Melbourne University to teach law before being a secondment to the Philosophy Department in 1990 to help establish the Centre for Philosophy and Public Issues. In 1991 he was invited to come to Queensland as Foundation Dean of Law at Griffith University. This is widely regarded as the most innovative and most successful of Australia's new law schools. In 1999, he was appointed Foundation Director of the Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance (one of only 14 such nationally funded centres across all disciplines and all disciplines). In 2004, he became Director of the Institute for Ethics, Governance and Law, a joint initiative of the United Nations University and Griffith.