We hope you will join us for the talk ‘Advocacy and Activism – A Black Barrister’s Perspective’ with Matthew Ryder QC.

Matthew Ryder QC, former Deputy Mayor of London to Sadiq Khan, whose clients include Stephen Lawrence’s family and Edward Snowden, reflects on the links and limits of political activism and legal advocacy, from the perspective of an eventful 30-year career at the Bar.

Matthew Ryder QC is a leading barrister at Matrix chambers. He is a graduate of Cambridge University (LLB Hons) and Columbia University, New York (LLM).

He is one of the most well-known black barristers in the UK and has been involved in numerous high profile political and human rights cases. His former clients include the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence and journalists working with US whistle-blower Edward Snowden.

The son of an English father and a Jamaican ‘Windrush Generation’ mother and credits his interest in law as being sparked by an interest in politics and social justice while still a teenager growing up in London. His political experience began as the co-founder of a Black students’ political group, during his first term as an 18-year-old undergraduate at Cambridge and has continued including a recent 2-year sabbatical from his legal career working as one of London’s Deputy Mayor’s, appointed by Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Mansfield Public Talks are free and open to all. See this term’s full programme here: https://www.mansfield.ox.ac.uk/mansfield-college-public-talks .

Mansfield College, University of Oxford

A welcoming academic community within the world’s leading University, Mansfield is the college at Oxford best known for being open, progressive and inclusive.

Since its founding in the 1880s as a non-conformist theological college, Mansfield is proud of its achievements in welcoming previously excluded constituencies to Oxford University. It is now the Oxford College with the highest proportion of students from state schools (on average 95% of its UK undergraduate intake year on year); of students who are the first in their families to go to University; and who come from the least advantaged backgrounds.