Benedict Michael Birnberg was born on 8 September 1930 in
Stepney, London, to parents who were both schoolteachers. His father was mathematician Jonas Birnberg, who had taught for almost 40 years at Colfes Grammar School in
Blackheath, and at
Goldsmiths College until his death in 1970; and his mother Naomi (d. 1988) was the sister of
Norman de Mattos Bentwich, and had set up a school in
Birchington, Kent, attended by Jewish children including refugees.
The Independent characterised Birnberg as having "acted for clients ranging from the eccentric to the eclectic – from high-profile cases such as Derek Bentley,
Richard Branson and
Vanessa Redgrave, to the 'unfashionable', as the solicitor himself describes Moors murderer
Ian Brady." After the
Mangrove Restaurant in
Notting Hill was broken into by police in 1988 allegedly to seize drugs, with its owner
Frank Crichlow spending five weeks in custody before being given bail, Birnberg's firm was part of the legal team that demolished the evidence, resulting in the jury throwing out the charges, with the
Metropolitan Police subsequently being successfully sued for
false imprisonment, battery and malicious prosecution. Birnberg served as an executor of the estate of influential Trinidadian historian
C. L. R. James, who died in 1989. Many notable solicitors started their careers with Birnberg, including human rights activist
Gareth Peirce,
Imran Khan (who acted for the
Stephen Lawrence case),
Jacqueline McKenzie (now associated with representing victims of the
Windrush scandal), and
Paul Boateng, who went on to become in 1987 one of the first
Black British MPs. Boateng has described him as a "legal hero", writing in
The Guardian:To work with Ben Birnberg was to occupy a world in which the clients were varied and the causes mixed and not always popular. Birnberg had begun his
civil liberties work with
CND and represented
Equity in its internal battles over the boycott of South Africa. The Redgraves were frequently in the office, as were numerous
ANC luminaries. He fought for gay rights before the term was invented, representing the Albany Trust. He struck a blow for artistic freedom, defending
David Hockney's right to bring back magazines deemed obscene by customs and excise. After Birnberg retired in 1999, Gareth Peirce continued to work as a senior partner of the company now known as Birnberg Peirce. Birnberg died from pneumonia on 13 October 2023, at the age of 93. His death was first announced in an article published in
The Law Society Gazette on 26 October. ==References==