Aluko & Oyebode, Tobun, Thabet, and Al Tamimi highlight African excellence at Women in Business Law Awards

Leading African law firm ALN Nigeria | Aluko & Oyebode has scooped three Firm of the Year honours and seen its former senior associate Tomilola Tobun (the Legal & Compliance Manager at Alitheia Capital) named an In-House Rising Star, helping to fly the flag for African excellence at the Women in Business Law EMEA Awards 2026.

Hosted in partnership with The Lawyer, this year’s Women in Business Law EMEA Awards took place at a glittering ceremony and dinner in London on Thursday night, celebrating the outstanding talent and achievements across the legal industry. 

”The awards honour women who have not only achieved excellence in their practice areas, but who have also demonstrated a strong commitment to championing and empowering other women in business law,” shared the organisers on social media. 

Founded in 1993, Aluko & Oyebode is the largest full-service commercial law firm in Nigeria, and blends international standards with local expertise. A member of ALN, Africa’s leading alliance of law firms, ALN Nigeria | Aluko & Oyebode has offices in the major commercial centres of Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt. The preeminent firm is led by women, after it elevated Senior Partner Olunbunmi Fayokun to Chair late last year, and Adeolu Idowu to Co-Managing Partner alongside Joke Aliu. 

On Thursday night in London, ALN Nigeria | Aluko & Oyebode won African Firm of the Year, along with trophies for Firm of the Year for ‘Intersectional Diversity - Middle East & Africa’, and for ‘Women in Business Law - Middle East & Africa Firm’. 

ALN Nigeria | Aluko & Oyebode was also shortlisted for ‘Career Development - Middle East & Africa’, a category won by leading MENA law firm Al Tamimi & Company, for ‘Innovative Initiatives’, a category won by Ukrainian law firm Aequo, and for ‘Pro Bono’, a category won by another Ukrainian law firm, VB Partners. 

Also, Olunbunmi Fayokun was shortlisted individually for Lawyer of the Year in the Debt Capital Markets category, while her predecessor Kofo Dosekun, who was ALN Nigeria | Aluko & Oyebode’s first-ever female Chair and led the firm through four transformative years, was shortlisted for the Outstanding Achievement Award. 

ALN Nigeria | Aluko & Oyebode were not the only African lawyers to shine at an awards evening heavily skewed towards European and global firms. 

For the second year in a row, Al Tamimi & Company, which has 17 offices across ten countries, including Egypt and Morocco, won both Firm of the Year for Career Development - Middle East & Africa, and was named MENA Firm of the Year. 

Celebrating the news this morning, Lucy Beales, head of the Al Tamimi Academy for regional learning and development, shared that she was most proud of the type of work their Career Development - Middle East & Africa Award was recognising; not the highly visible, headline-grabbing efforts like major deal announcements, but behind-the-scenes work. “It’s the work of our business services teams — building the structures, programmes, pathways and all the extra creative bits for clients or the public, that sit behind everything else and quietly make it all work,” says Beales. “It’s also the kind of work that doesn’t always get recognised; So for it to be acknowledged like this, externally and at this level, really does mean a lot.”

Among seven In-House Awards presented at this year’s Women in Business Law EMEA Awards, African practitioners won two of them. Egyptian lawyer Yara Thabet of the Arab-African International Bank, was named General Counsel of the Year – Africa. Tomilola Tobun, who last year took up the role of Legal & Compliance Manager at Alitheia Capital, a trailblazing impact investing private equity and financial advisory firm based out of Lagos, was named an In-House Rising Star.