Albert H Y Chen was born in and grew up in Hong Kong. He graduated from the Bachelor of Laws programme of the University of Hong Kong in 1980, and obtained the Postgraduate Certificate in Laws there in 1981. He then undertook postgraduate study in comparative law and theories of law and development at Harvard University, and was awarded the Master of Laws in 1982. Between 1982 and 1984 he worked in a solicitors' firm in Hong Kong and in 1984 became qualified to practise as a solicitor in Hong Kong. In the same year he began his academic career as a Lecturer in Law at the University of Hong Kong. He served as Head of the Department of Law in 1993-96, and Dean of the Faculty of Law in 1996-2002. He is currently the Cheng Chan Lan Yue Professor in Constitutional Law in the Department of Law. He has taught the subjects of Legal System and Legal Method, Constitutional and Administrative law, the Legal System of the People's Republic of China, the Law of Business Associations, Jurisprudence, the Use of Chinese in Law, Law and Society, and Guided Research . He was the reviews and publications editor of the Hong Kong Law Journal in 1984-1987, general co-editor of the same journal in 1987-1990, and has served in recent years as Associate Editor of this journal. In addition to over 160 articles or chapters published in various English-language and Chinese-language journals and books, he has written the following books: Hong Kong's Legal System and the Basic Law (Hong Kong: Wide Angle Press, 1986) (in Chinese), Human Rights and the Rule of Law: The Challenges of Hong Kong's Transition (Hong Kong: Wide Angle Press, 1987) (in Chinese, with Professor Johannes Chan as co-author), The Workers' Compensation System in Hong Kong: Retrospect and Prospect (Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, 1987) (in English, with Professor Ng Sek-hong as co-author), Law and Politics in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Wide Angle Press, 1990) (in Chinese), I Think, I Am (Hong Kong: Breakthrough Press, 1990) (in Chinese), An Introduction to the Legal System of the People's Republic of China (Hong Kong: LexisNexis, 4th ed. 2011), The Rule of Law, Enlightenment and the Spirit of Modern Law (Beijing: China University of Political Science and Law Press, 1998) (in Chinese),  The World of Jurisprudence (Beijing: China University of Political Science and Law Press, 2003) (in Chinese), Hong Kong’s Explorations in the Rule of Law Under One Country Two Systems (Hong Kong: Chung Hwa Bookstore, 2010) (in Chinese),  Ideals of Rule of Law, Human Rights and Constitutional Democracy (Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 2012) (in Chinese), The World of Constitutional Law (Beijing: China University of Political Science and Law Press, 2014) (in Chinese). He is also the co-editor of The Basic Law and Hong Kong's Future (Singapore: Butterworths, 1988), General Principles of Hong Kong Law (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 3rd ed. 2015) (in Chinese), Human Rights in Asia (London: Routledge, 2006), Administrative Law and Governance in Asia: Comparative Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2009),  Legal Reforms in China and Vietnam: A Comparison of Asian Communist Regimes (London: Routledge, 2010), Perspectives on the Hong Kong Basic Law (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 2015) (in Chinese), and editor of Constitutionalism in Asia in the Early Twenty-First Century (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

Professor Chen served as a member of the Law Reform Commission of Hong Kong in 2002-08, a member of the Committee on Review of Post-Service Outside Work for Directorate Civil Servants in 2008-09, and a member of the Commission for Strategic Development of the Hong Kong Government in 2005-2012. He is currently a member of the Committee for the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region under the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China, a Justice of the Peace, and an honorary professor at the Renmin University of China, Tsinghua University, Peking University, Zhongshan University, Macau University, and the Institute of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences of Fudan University. He is also a member of the Academic Advisory Committee of the Institute of Law of the Academia Sinica, Taipei, and a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Comparative Law, China Review, Chinese Journal of Comparative Law, Transnational Legal Theory, Hong Kong Journal of Social Sciences (in Chinese), National Taiwan University Law Review (in English), and Chengchi Law Review (in Chinese).