Speaker details

Biography

Funmi is a passionate public administrator specialising in Public Law and Policy. She was appointed in 2012 as the pioneer Executive Director of the Public Interest Law Partnership ( PILP ) by the erstwhile governor of Lagos State, Nigeria. She ran the project from the State's Attorney General’s office, serving under three government administrations to implement statewide policies aimed at enhancing access to justice. She has since developed the public-private partnership into an NGO, working with the Vice President of Nigeria’s office to expand its operations to a national scale. She is the founder of the Nigerian PILP Pro Bono Week which includes the Governor’s Pro Bono Awards as well as legal clinics, conferences and workshops which have been attended by thousands of stakeholders and key policy makers from across the globe. She serves as the Executive Secretary to the Board of Trustees overseeing the Pro Bono Trust Fund. Under her leadership, the PILP has grown to a network of over 250 partner law firms and NGOs providing free quality legal services to a vast number of marginalized people in the society through its intervention strategies. Prior to running the PILP, she was an associate at one of Nigeria's leading law firms, Banwo&Ighodalo. She obtained her LL.B and LL.M. degrees at the University of Warwick, UK and the University of California, Berkeley, USA respectively.