Michael Mansfield
British lawyer
Michael Mansfield (born 12 October 1941) is an English barrister and head of chambers at Nexus Chambers. He has been described as "The king of human rights work" by The Legal 500 and as a leading Silk in civil liberties and human rights (including actions against the police).
A British republican, vegetarian, socialist and self-described "radical lawyer", he has participated in prominent and controversial court cases and inquests including the Birmingham Six, the Bloody Sunday massacre, the Hillsborough disaster, the deaths of Jean Charles de Menezes and Princess Diana, and the McLibel case.
Early life
Mansfield grew up in north Finchley, north London, and attended Holmewood Preparatory School (Woodside Park) before going to Highgate School and the University of Keele, where he graduated with a BA (Hons) degree in history and philosophy, and was Secretary of Keele's Students' Union.
Career
Mansfield was called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1967, became Queen's Counsel in 1989 and was elected as a Bencher of Gray's Inn in 2007.
He is currently the president of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers. Mansfield is an after-dinner and keynote speaker.
Notable cases
As well as representing those wrongly convicted of the IRA's Guildford and Birmingham pub bombings, Mansfield has represented: the Angry Brigade; Dolours and Marian Price; Brian Keenan; the Orgreave miners; Mahmood Hussein Mattan, Ruth Ellis and James Hanratty (in posthumous appeals); those involved in the Israeli Embassy bombing; Frank Crichlow, owner of the Mangrove restaurant; Stephen Lawrence's family during their private prosecution of his killers; Danny McNamee; Michael Barrymore at the Stuart Lubbock inquest; Barry George both at the inquest into the death of Jill Dando and George's wrongful conviction; the gangster Kenneth Noye; the Bloody Sunday families; Arthur Scargill; Angela Cannings; Colin Norris; Fatmir Limaj, a Kosovo-Albanian leader prosecuted in the Hague; Mohamed al-Fayed in the inquest into the deaths of his son Dodi al-Fayed and Diana, Princess of Wales; the Cambridge Two; the families of Jean Charles de Menezes and Mark Duggan; the Tottenham Three and the Cardiff Five.
In March 2019 Mansfield was engaged by the family of footballer Emiliano Sala to represent their interests in the dispute over his death. In 2025 Mansfield acted on behalf of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, helping to prepare and submit a criminal complaint against British nationals accused of atrocities during the Gaza war.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3822175. VIAF identifies the subject as 75890501. The Library of Congress control number is no94000595. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1941, 1967, 1989 and 2007.
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