Mark Stephens (solicitor)

Mark Howard Stephens CBE is an English solicitor specialising in media law, intellectual property rights and human rights with the firm Howard Kennedy LLP. Stephens studied law at North East London Polytechnic , graduating in 1978. After further study in Brussels he was admitted as a solicitor in 1982. Stephens started his career as a lawyer providing advice to artists and soon established his own practice with a partner. In 1987 Stephens helped defend the American artist J. S. G. Boggs from a counterfeiting charge. He gained a reputation as the patron solicitor of previously lost causes following this case and others where he defended artists freedom of expression, as well as representing the leaders of the miners strike of 198485 and James Hewitt when allegations of his affair with Diana, Princess of Wales first emerged.

Stephens was born in Old Windsor, Berkshire, onApril 1957 to very, very poor parents. His father was an artist and his mother a secretary and later a social worker. As a boy he was quite sporty and swam for his county. He attended St Pauls Secondary Modern School and Strodes Grammar School, followed by the Cambridge Manor Academy for Dramatic Arts, before going on to study law at North East London Polytechnic. He says that he was partly tricked into studying law by his father. He graduated in 1978 and then went on to study European Community Law at the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels and was then admitted as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court in England and Wales in July 1982. He married Donna Coote in 1982 and they have three daughters. In the 1990s, he taught scuba diving, a hobby he began in his teens, and built up a collection of art and sculptures.

Source: Wikipedia