Alexander (R.A.A.) "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE, (born August 24, 1948) is a Zimbabwean-born British writer and Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. In the late 20th century McCall Smith became a respected expert on medical law and bioethics and served on British and international committees concerned with these issues. He has since become internationally known as a writer of fiction. He is most widely known as the creator of the The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.

Alexander McCall Smith was born in Bulawayo, in what was then the British colony of Southern Rhodesia and is now Zimbabwe. He was educated at the Christian Brothers College there before moving to Scotland to study law at the University of Edinburgh. After returning to southern Africa to teach law at the University of Botswana, he returned once more to Edinburgh, where he lives today with his wife, Elizabeth, a physician, and their two daughters Lucy and Emily. He was Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh at one time and is now Emeritus Professor at its School of Law. He retains a further involvement with the University in relation to the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

He is the former chairman of the British Medical Journal Ethics Committee (until 2002), the former vice-chairman of the Human Genetics Commission of the United Kingdom, and a former member of the International Bioethics Commission of UNESCO. When he achieved success as a writer he gave up these commitments.