The woman the Sussexes hired to fight their battles
A partner at ‘attack dog’ firm Schillings, Jenny Afia has a fearsome reputation for taking on the media, says Camilla Tominey
Afia represented a string of famous clients, including their friend Sir Elton
She had already gained a fearsome reputation as the chief defender of Meghan’s privacy before she made an unexpected appearance on The Princes and The Press this week. Authorised by the Duchess of Sussex to deny claims she had been a “difficult or demanding” boss who drove staff to leave, lawyer Jenny Afia’s contribution to the BBC documentary that has sparked palace “fury” took royal watchers by surprise.
While no other member of the Royal family agreed to take part in media editor Amol Rajan’s two-part series examining the relationship between monarchy and media, it is clear that Meghan had other ideas.
Introducing Afia – who is a partner at Schillings, the London-based legal firm the Sussexes employ to fight their battles – in Monday night’s episode, Rajan confirmed: “The Duchess’s lawyer spoke to me with Meghan’s permission.”
Asked about reports of the royal’s behaviour behind palace doors, which are now the subject of an internal investigation, Afia, 41, said: “Those stories were false. This narrative that no one could work for the Duchess of Sussex, that she was too difficult or demanding a boss, and that everyone had to leave, is just not true.”
And there is more to come. In a trailer for part two, to be aired next Monday, Afia explains: “The overall allegation is that the Duchess of Sussex is guilty of bullying.”
When asked “and is she?” by Rajan, she responds: “Absolutely not.”
The intervention is likely to raise eyebrows behind palace gates, where there has long been chatter about a string of staff departures on Meghan (and Harry’s) watch – not to mention that bullying complaint, submitted in October 2018 by Jason Knauf, then the Sussexes’ communications secretary.
Knauf hit the headlines this month when he gave evidence to a Court of Appeal hearing into Meghan’s ongoing case against the Mail on Sunday
– which is being spearheaded by Afia – detailing emails and text message exchanges which showed the Duchess had authorised collaboration with the authors of her biography, Finding Freedom.
The correspondence, which also revealed Meghan telling Knauf that she had drafted a letter to her father Thomas Markle Snr “with the understanding that it could be leaked”, forced the Duchess into an apology for “unintentionally” misleading the court during an earlier hearing, when Schillings claimed that she did not know whether her communications team had given information to the authors and insisted she had not been contacted by aides for “clarification of any matters relating to the book”.
So just how did Afia – who rises at 4.45am to put in two hours’ work before her young son and daughter wake up – find herself at the centre of the Sussexes’ war on the press?
It all began in October 2019, a year after the bullying complaint was submitted, when the couple recruited Schillings to sue the Mail on Sunday’s
publishers, Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), for breach of privacy, copyright and data protection after the
newspaper printed the handwritten letter Meghan had sent to her “Daddy” following her wedding in May 2018. Emotions were running high between father and daughter, after the former Hollywood lighting director had pulled out of the ceremony at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, at the last minute following a heart attack.
Having previously used the Royal family’s preferred lawyers, Harbottle & Lewis, to fight their battles, the Sussexes turned to the “attack dog” firm founded in 1984 by Keith Schilling, now 65, who left school at 15.
As the go-to firm for those wanting to obtain injunctions to gag newspapers from publishing stories that are seen as damaging, Schillings appeared to offer the robust approach Harry and Meghan were after. And in its award-winning privacy and reputation lawyer, Afia – who had already represented a string of famous clients including Adele, Madonna, Sir Cliff Richard and their friend Sir Elton John – the Sussexes appeared to have found their perfect protector.
As one of the country’s leading lawyers, ranked as a “tier 1 leader in her field” by Chambers & Partners, the Spear’s Reputation Management index, as well as being recognised in Billboard’s 2021 Top Music Lawyers, it is clear that Afia isn’t phased by representing the rich and famous. Indeed, the former Young Solicitor of the Year appeared in her own Vogue shoot in 2017 and even features in a poster that can be bought on Amazon.
It must have greatly appealed that the Cambridge graduate had also made a name for herself taking on the online giants, as a member of the Children’s Commissioner’s Digital Task Force.
The “likeable, lovely and bright” lawyer – as she was called in a Tatler profile – was also on the Steering Committee of children’s charity 5Rights and co-authored with Baroness Kidron the report: “Disrupted Childhood: the cost of persuasive design”, as well as being a member of the UK advisory board for Common Sense Media, a non-profit committing to “build a digital world where our kids can thrive”.
Here, then, is a woman very much speaking the Sussexes’ language when it comes to social media abuse and online safety. But crucially, she also has a fearsome reputation for taking on the mainstream media that Harry and Meghan so love to hate – despite being married to a journalist, Richard Ferrer, editor of the Jewish News.
Take a piece that Afia wrote for the Huffington Post in 2016, in which she called out the “unscrupulous tactics” of the paparazzi and the “underhand methods English newspapers still resort to to gain scoops”.
Describing intrusion into the royals’ family life as “real and unjustified”, she appeared to preempt Harry’s sentiments later that year, when he instructed Knauf to release a statement complaining about the treatment of his then-girlfriend Meghan saying: “This is not a game – it is her life and his.”
Afia has become a defender of celebrities’ right not to appear in the newspapers. As she writes on her Linkedin page: “I help people in the public eye protect their privacy and reputations against arbitrary interference. I believe that privacy is precious and people don’t give up their rights just because they’ve achieved professional success.”
Describing how she has worked at the firm since 2006, she adds: “I’ve been a Schillings partner since 2012; a fact I try to slip into most conversations, as nothing makes me prouder.”
Yet it is her prime time protestations on behalf of Meghan on the BBC that are now being slipped into conversation in both royal and legal circles. To some observers, her appearance on the documentary will feel like part legal defence, part PR as the Sussexes continue to adopt an Americanised approach to fighting their constitutional corner.
While a departure from the Queen’s “never complain, never explain” mantra, they are not the first royals to adopt a more aggressive approach – with Prince Charles also suing ANL for breach of copyright over the publication of his personal diaries in 2005, and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge winning damages for breach of privacy against French magazine Closer in 2017 after it published photographs of Kate sunbathing topless on holiday.
Yet the unprecedented nature of Afia’s TV intervention suggests that there is more to come from the Sussexes’ chosen lawyer – one who isn’t afraid to play the media at their own game.