‘You can overcome barriers’ – UK senior barrister, Nneka Akudolu
In the UK, barristers from ethnic minority backgrounds face systemic obstacles to building and progressing a career at the Bar, according to the Bar Council’s Race Working Group Report in 2021.
UK’s sixth black female Queens Counsel (QC), Nneka Akudolu, says barriers can certainly be conquered, and she is asking people to see "possibilities beyond any obstacles.”
Nigerian born, she was among 101 new Queen’s Counsel recently appointed in England and Wales. The Queen’s Counsel is the highest level of seniority as a barrister in the UK and it is a recognition of excellence of work.
In a video interview with the BBC, she shared insights into her career journey and particular challenges she faced until receiving the distinguished title of Queen’s Counsel.
Written off as a failure, especially because she didn’t have a good academic record; she left school in her second year after she got pregnant.
“So it seemed that everyone’s views on how I’ll do, will come to fruition and quite frankly I sought of thrived on that adversity,” she recalled.
She however defied the odds, went back to school, passed all of her exams, and started prosecuting and defending cases low profile, and then ‘serious cases' like murder, rape, drug trafficking, and others. She’s got 19 years of experience in criminal law.
She noted that much of how far she has come was to prove people wrong: “A lot of women think that they can’t do both. But they can, and I want to prove people wrong. So I went back to London, gave birth, within 10 weeks, I was back in Cardiff, sitting my exams and I passed them all, completed my degree. And by that stage, I wanted to be a barrister.”
In the UK, barristers from ethnic minority backgrounds face systemic obstacles to building and progressing a career at the Bar, according to the Bar Council’s Race Working Group Report in 2021. At the time, there were only five (5) black British female Queen’s Counsel barristers in England and Wales.
“I was trying to get into a profession where nepotism and influence were basically the things that would get someone into the profession. And when I went for my interview, all of the panel were white. But it’s very different now, but there’s still a massive journey to undertake. Because I am a QC, but I’m only the sixth QC in the entire country,”
