Attorney General, was born on 4 November 1941 and adopted as a baby by Dr Alexander & Eleanora Lang. He was brought up in Scarborough with two brothers and a sister and educated at St Edmund’s School in Canterbury and the College of Law, London.

Admitted solicitor in 1965, he was articled to a solicitor in Bognor Regis and later became partner in a long-established firm of solicitors in Henley. His legal practice at this stage of his career was considerably less varied (and, at times, much safer) than his later experiences. But he later told The Times that his most memorable experience as a lawyer had been, as a young solicitor, spiking a writ on the pitchfork wielded by a farmer on whom he was trying to serve it.

Lang married Theresa Hurt in 1975 and they went on to have three daughters (Margaret, Bernie and Pippa, all of whom are now very much at home with their own families in the Falklands) and a son (Alex, who now lives in England).

A little over a year later, he left the Henley firm over a disagreement about its future and successfully applied for a job advertised in The Times. The start of 1977 saw the Langs, with their first daughter, setting off to the middle of the Pacific for him to become Secretary for Justice (Attorney General) on Nauru, at a time when its phosphate resources still made it the country with the highest per capita income in the world. This was an exceedingly varied role which involved acting on behalf of the government both on Nauru and internationally, though the amount of travelling involved took its toll on family life. He had to advise the Parliament on how to proceed after their mace had been thrown over the reef and into sea a mile deep – a replacement was quickly produced by the Nauruan Public Works Department from a piece of Tomano wood.

A toll of a very different sort was exacted by Lang’s next post. After turning down the possibility of a legal role in San Francisco, he applied for a position with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and was interviewed on Nauru by the UK’s then High Commissioner, Viscount Dunrossil, who had come to Nauru from Fiji on the pretext of conducting a surgery for British nationals on the island. In 1982, Lang became Attorney General of the Turks and Caicos Islands at a time of great turbulence for that territory. His predecessor was subsequently found to have committed an offense in relation to a land deal; one Chief Minister was arrested in Miami with two of his colleagues on drug trafficking charges; a public building on Grand Turk was burned down in an arson attack; and another Chief Minister had to resign as direct rule was reintroduced.

As the Attorney General, Lang had a key role in assisting with the investigations and inquiries which took place and in helping to make progress towards the restoration of peace and good government in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Both his and his family’s security and safety were at risk during this difficult time.

By early 1987, Lang had accepted a posting to become the second Attorney General of the Falkland Islands.  Although his predecessor Michael Gaiger was still in office at that time, he was on leave when the then Senior Magistrate passed away. For that sad reason, Lang offered to go out to the Falklands early and spent a short time as Senior Magistrate before taking up office as Attorney General in June 1987.

During his nineteen years as Attorney General, Lang made a vital and widely recognised contribution to the development of the modern Falklands, not least by the prodigious output of legislation he drafted to bring the statute book much further up to date than it had been when he started work. He also commissioned the production of the loose-leaf Revised Laws of the Falkland Islands, at the time, the first such compendium in forty years, though since superseded by the online Statute Law Database.

He was largely responsible for shaping the legal regime under which the Falkland Islands Government proceeded to licence oil exploration. A story illustrates his passion for the Falklands: the suggestion by the then Deputy Governor after a Government House dinner that the Islanders would not receive the benefit of oil revenues caused him to clench his fist so hard that he crushed the brandy glass he was holding.

Present at all meetings of the Executive and Legislative councils over nineteen years (the longest term as attorney in any British overseas territory) his encyclopaedic knowledge of British colonial legislation was valued by successive governors and councillors.

In 2005, Lang reached the FIG retirement age of 64 and chose to carry on for another year before stepping down from his post but not stepping back from the practice of law. Slightly to his wife’s disappointment at not finally getting all of his time, Lang felt he had what he called ‘a moral duty’ to provide legal advice and representation to the community (or, as Theresa has put it, ‘everyone who rang the doorbell’). This was a testament not just to his professional work ethic, but also to the high regard in he was held. As well as serving as a lay member of the Public Accounts Committee, he also continued to draft legislation, working as a consultant for the Government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

In 2012 (after returning to private practice for five years since he first ‘retired’), Lang retired for what would turn out to be the last time: while in the UK a few weeks later, he suffered a stroke from which he never fully recovered. He survived in care for another ten and a half years, during which (apart from when COVID restrictions prevented it) he was regularly visited by members of his family. He passed away, peacefully, in the early hours of 3 September 2022 and lies under a simple cross in Stanley cemetery. He was buried with his wig and in the robes of a Queen’s Counsel, which he became in 1985.

David Lang will not just be remembered for his legal contribution, but his other contributions to the life of the Falklands. He was an active member of the Falkland Islands Operatic and Dramatic Association and played a number of parts on the Town Hall stage, including those of the Mikado and the Major General (in The Pirates of Penzance). He had a pleasing tenor voice … even if, on one occasion, it did displease some of his former colleagues in Cable Cottage, which had once been his Chambers: a visit to borrow a book from the library turned into an impromptu rehearsal for his final role in a FIODA production and he was asked to come back another time! In such spare time as he had, Lang played bridge and was an accomplished player. With Theresa as his partner, he won some tournaments as well as being a recreational player.

Lang was honoured for his work not once but twice: in 1993, he was awarded the CBE and went to Buckingham Palace for his investiture. However, when he was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 2007, exceptionally and a reflexion of the high esteem in which he was held by the Foreign Office legal advisers, he chose to collect his award at Government House in Stanley, telling those assembled at the reception:

I wanted to receive the insignia in the Falkland Islands because the Falkland Islands are my home and while the award has been for overseas service, in a sense for me it has been for service to the country I love, to the country which is my home.