11KBW and 39 Essex Chambers are delighted to announce that Kofo Boboye and Oluwatoni Adewole have been awarded the 2026 11KBW/39 Essex Chambers Scholarships for Black students on the Bar course.
Kofo and Oluwatoni will each receive awards of £30,000, together with mentoring and other non-financial assistance from members of 11KBW/39 Essex Chambers.
Kofo Boboye obtained a law degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science, winning the Dean’s Award for second best overall performance, before completing an LLM at Harvard Law School. At Harvard, she volunteered as a student attorney at the Harvard Tenant Advocacy Project, representing public housing tenants in legal disputes. She also volunteers as a Student Representative at the School Exclusion Project. She intends to practise at the public law Bar.
Oluwatoni Adewole obtained a law degree from the University of Cambridge. He intends to practise as a barrister specialising in clinical negligence, personal injury and medical inquests, and is currently gaining experience as a clinical negligence paralegal. During his studies, Oluwatoni founded and ran Plato’s Cave, Homerton College’s first debating society, and his work has been published in Per Incuriam, the flagship journal of the Cambridge University Law Society.
Kofo and Oluwatoni were selected from an exceptional field of candidates by a panel which included members of 11KBW and 39 Essex Chambers and two external assessors, Dr Maggie Semple OBE and Paul McFarlane.
Jane McCafferty KC, Chair of 11KBW’s Equality and Corporate Social Responsibility Committee, and Judith Ayling KC, Chair of 39 Essex Chambers’ Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Comittee said: “We are delighted to announce Kofo and Oluwatoni as the 11KBW/39 Essex Chambers scholars for 2026. We wish them and all the shortlisted candidates every success in what we are sure will be stellar careers at the Bar.”
The 11KBW/39 Essex Chambers Scholarship was established as a focused and practical response to the continued underrepresentation of black applicants, pupils and barristers at the Bar. Full details of the scholarship are available at our dedicated scholarship website.
