by Abimbola Johnson.
Abi studied law at Oxford University and is currently a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London. She has worked on a number of high-profile public inquiries and reviews:
- She is currently instructed as counsel to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry
- Between 2019 and 2021 Abimbola was part of the Dame Linda Dobbs Review Team
- Between 2018 and 2019, Abimbola was part of the Aftermath Team in the Grenfell Public Inquiry
- In 2012, Abimbola was instructed as part of the team on the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry. Instructed by the Department of Health.
Abimbola also chairs the Independent Scrutiny & Oversight Board which is tasked with scrutinising the National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing’s Race Action Plan, devised to stamp out racism across policing in England and Wales.1
Abi said in an interview in 20222:
“I went to Haberdashers’ Aske’s School for Girls, a private school in Elstree. We were really encouraged to set our sights high academically, so applying to Oxford was very much seen as ‘the normal thing to do.’ My Nigerian heritage reinforced that: every adult in my family had gone to university and the expectation was always to be a high achiever. The majority of them had a law degree, even if they didn’t go on to practice! Gina Yashere makes a joke that if you’re Nigerian you have four options in life: being a doctor, lawyer, engineer or a disappointment! My family were always extremely supportive and continue to be but certainly the expectations were always to enter a solid, traditional and stable career. I’ve always been quite precocious and assertive. I loved reading, debating and standing up for others. With my family’s background in law, I grew up with people pointing out that my attributes and interests lined up with becoming a lawyer, specifically an advocate. I therefore felt really drawn to the Bar. However, really, I’d wanted to read history. It had been my favourite subject at school and I think I’d have found studying it really fulfilling.”
“I went to St Peter’s College between 2006 and 2009. I sang with the Oxford Belles which meant I got to attend a lot of college balls for free. I regularly attended African-Caribbean Society events. I ended up with a core group of friends whom I remain close to even now. To be honest, I didn’t actually enjoy my degree! I wasn’t in love with the law at the time. I wanted to be a lawyer more than I’d wanted to study it. I found it quite hard to motivate myself to study, to read through cases, and write essays for tutorials. In my third year, however, we got to choose modules. I chose public international law and moral and political philosophy. Looking at the law through an international and philosophical lens brought it to life and as stressful as I found studying for finals, being able to look at all of the modules together made it click for me.”
“I’ve been a barrister for eleven years now and have developed a ‘portfolio’ practice, I work in criminal defence but I’m also involved in public inquiry work, and I chair a board that scrutinises all 43 police forces across England and Wales in relation to their implementation of a race action plan that aims to make the police ‘anti-racist’.”
“One of the key areas of friction that the race action plan is working on is how the police can work more transparently and with more accountability. If they want to win the trust and confidence of people from Black communities, they need to show a willingness to listen, change and hold themselves to account. Sometimes that can be as simple as clearer data collection, making minutes of meetings more readily available, bringing community members into decision making processes, looking at the language they use when doing all of the above.”
Abi has also pointed out: “My blackness means that often I’m the only person in court that shares skin colour with my clients and there are times when I’ve understood a cultural context to their instructions that has not been picked up by others.”3
Quaker Socialist Society 