Lex Mpati

Lex Mpati is a South African judge, Chancellor of Rhodes University,[1] and former President of the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa.[2]

Mpati has deep roots in Grahamstown and the province as a whole. He was born in Durban in 1949 but his schooling was in the Eastern Cape, first at St Joseph's Catholic School at Fort Beaufort and then at Mary Waters High School in Grahamstown, from where he matriculated in 1967.

Mpati enrolled at Rhodes in 1979, under a special permit (required by black students), and graduated in 1982 with a BA degree in legal theory and Xhosa. He graduated with a B Law degree (LLB) in 1984. He was only the second black student to graduate with an LLB from Rhodes

Lex Mpati started his legal career in 1985 and was admitted as an Advocate in 1989. He served as a Judge in the Eastern Cape High Court from 1997–2000. He was appointed as a Judge of Appeal, first in an acting capacity, and in December 2000 as a full member of the Supreme Court of Appeal. He ascended to Deputy President of the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2003, and to President in August 2008. He is also a member of the Judicial Service Commission.

He attended Rhodes University as a student between 1979 and 1982, and subsequently returned to his alma mater as Chancellor in February 2013.