José de Faria Costa graduated in law in 1974 from the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra with a final grade of 17 points. He completed his postgraduate studies at the same faculty in 1980 in Legal and Criminal Sciences, obtaining a final grade of very good - 18 points.

In 1992, he obtained his PhD from the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra with the thesis ‘O perigo em direito penal (Contributo para a sua fundamentação e compreensão dogmáticas)’, having been approved with distinction and honours, unanimously. In March 1992, he was appointed Assistant Professor.

In 1997, he was designated Associate Professor with a permanent position. In January 2004, he was unanimously approved for the position of Full Professor. He was also President of the Board of Directors of the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra between 2005 and 2009. Between 2009 and July 2013, he was President of the Institute of Economic and European Criminal Law.

Served as Ombudsman of Portugal between 2013 and 2017 and was a member of the Council of State by virtue of his position. On 10 March 2016, he took over as President of the Ibero-American Federation of Ombudsmen (FIO).

Currently he is the Director of the Faculty of Law at the Lusófona University (Porto and Lisbon).

In writing, he is Francisco d'Eulália, in painting, José d'Eulália.