Beloff is the son of the historian Max Beloff, Baron Beloff, and is therefore technically styled 'the Honourable', a courtesy title he habitually uses. His mother was Helen Dobrin. He was educated at the Dragon School and Eton College, read history at Magdalen College, Oxford, and was President of the Oxford Union. When he was President of the Union in 1963 the Union passed a resolution to allow women to have full membership for the first time.
He was called to the BaratGray's Inn, where he later became a Bencher and was the Treasurer for 2008. He is the founder of a student prize at the Inn awarded for an essay on administrative law.[3]
The term Plate glass university stems from the title of his book The Plateglass Universities (1970).[4]
He was President of Trinity College, Oxford, from 1996 to 2006, succeeded by Ivor Roberts. Trinity College now awards a Michael and Judith Beloff Scholarship.[7] Trinity College's debating society also runs the annual Michael Beloff After-Dinner Speaking Competition, open to members of the college.
^"Birthday's today". The Telegraph. 18 April 2012. Archived from the original on 20 April 2012. Retrieved 14 April 2014. the Hon Michael Beloff, QC, President of Trinity College, Oxford, 1996–2006, 70
^"Gray's Inn". Gray's Inn. 25 June 2014. Retrieved 15 January 2018.
^Beloff, Michael (1970). The plateglass universities. Rutherford N.J: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN978-0-8386-7550-2.