He 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 Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in history and philosophy, before becoming Secretary of Keele"s Students" Union.
Keele University; Highgate School.
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. Mansfield is a regular after dinner and keynote speaker. Notable cases
Lockerbie bombing
Warning against over-reliance upon forensic science to secure convictions, Michael Mansfield in the British Broadcasting Corporation Scotland Frontline Scotland television programme Silence over Lockerbie, broadcast on 14 October 1997, said he wanted to make just one point:
Forensic science is not immutable.
They"re not written in tablets of stone, and the biggest mistake that anyone can make—public, expert or anyone else alike—is to believe that forensic science is somehow beyond reproach: it is not! The biggest miscarriages of justice in the United Kingdom, many of them emanate from cases in which forensic science has been shown to be wrong.
And the moment a forensic scientist or anyone else says: "I am sure this marries up with that" I get worried.
A republican, vegetarian, socialist and self-described "radical lawyer", he has participated in prominent and controversial court cases and inquests involving accused Ireland Republican Army bombers, the Bloody Sunday incident, the Hillsborough disaster and the deaths of Jean Charles de Menezes and Diana, Princess of Wales and the McLibel case. He is currently the President of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, and is a Professor at Law at City University. He has been referred to as a "champagne socialist" though he has said that 95 per cent of his work comes from legal aid.
