Bianca & Amanda Clinton: Meet Ghanaian Twin Sisters Who Are Both Lawyers And Have Owned Law Firm For 13 Years
- Ghanaian twin sisters, Bianca and Amanda Clinton, shelved their dreams of becoming journalists in favour of pursuing legal education to fulfil their father's wish
- Due to their extraordinary excellence, dedication and tenacity, they have become two of the leading international lawyers in Ghana today
- The sisters established their pan African law firm, Clinton Consultancy, in 2011 and have operated it for 13 years
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Being identical twins meant having similar physically features, but, interestingly, Bianca Akweley Clinton and her twin sister, Amanda Akuokor Clinton, share interests beyond their features; they are both lawyers. They first fell in love with journalism, but as fate would have it, they transitioned and became lawyers with a beautiful story to share.
Amanda and Bianca were born in Sierra Leone to parents who were both lawyers. They moved to the UK when they were eight and lived there until they were 16, and their parents decided to migrate to Ghana as a career decision.
Source: UGC
In Ghana, the ladies started their secondary education at Wesley Girls Senior High School and completed it at Lincoln Community School. Their introduction to journalism came when Amanda one day had an encounter with a lady with public relations (PR) background and, through that, found out media work was something she would be good at, given how well-spoken she is.
To nurture her potential, a show called Teen Vibes was created for her at Vibes FM, but like many twins, she pitched for her sister to be a co-host, which she did. They ran the show for a while until they turned 18 and had to return to the UK for their university education.
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When it came to their career, Bianca was open-minded about the field she would end up in, but Amanda's dream was to become a BBC newsreader and wanted to pursue a degree in that regard. Their father, unfortunately, would not have that.
"My dad wanted us to follow his footsteps and become lawyers and made us aware he wouldn't pay school fees for broadcast journalism. So I had no choice but to just do the law because it was paid for", Amanda told YEN.com.gh in an interview.
Pursuing a Law degree at Coventry University and Getting barred in UK, Ghana and Sierra Leone
Source: UGC
The twin sisters' new career goal was to become lawyers, so they proceeded to Coventry University in the UK, where they acquired their first degree in law in 2002. Interestingly, Amanda, who had hoped to become a journalist, ended up graduating with upper second class.
In 2006, they sat for the UK bar exams and passed. They also took the Ghana bar exams in 2009 and excelled. They currently practice law in both countries, including their birth country, Sierra Leone.
"For Sierra Leone, we were only required to submit where we are barred and then, they consider it and accept you should they choose to. We are also half Sierra Leoneans from our father's side so that played a roll," she said.
Working with the Attorney General's Department in Ghana and setting up Clinton Consultancy
Amanda and Bianca had completely different career paths after becoming full-time lawyers. For Amanda, her first job was at the Attorney General's Department as an assistant state attorney, where she worked for some years and later decided to start a consultancy with her sister.
In 2011, Clinton's Consultancy was birthed and registered, but it remained inactive for two years. It was only after Amanda resigned from her job, travelled to the US and saw how things were done differently that she started running the consultancy full-time. The first step she took was setting up a website.
"Being in the US for two years opened my eyes to the importance of having certain things in place such as marketing, a good website with great pictures and write-ups, and basically just starting with the little you had.
Over there, you could have a small two or 3-man shop, and they would have a great website with professional pictures, and they wouldn't need huge investment, but they just start", Amanda told YEN.com.gh.
Since its commencement, Clinton Consultancy has been in operation for 13 years, with international and local clients in Ghana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Egypt. Amanda believes setting up the firm has helped clients and potential clients trust their credibility.
Clinton Consultancy is rated among the top five law firms in Ghana (#2) as independently rated by The Lawyers Global.
She also added that thanks to her experience in journalism some years back, consistently publishing great write-ups about what she does on the website comes easily to her. Also, a number of her articles have been featured on reputable news platforms.
Bianca Akweley Clinton's rise to Head of Legal at ProCredit and Access Bank
Source: UGC
Speaking on her twin sister's career journey, Amanda admitted that Bianca has had a somewhat faster career growth in law, and she believes that can be attributed to the fact that at a very young age, she was more open-minded about things.
"Bianca's path was very different. While I was an assistant state attorney at the Attorney General's Department, she was made head of legal affairs very early; first at Procredit and then Access Bank," she indicated.
Sharing in laughter, Amanda emphasised that when she was just an assistant, her sister was 'doing head of legal stuff'.
After years of working with Access Bank, Bianca got headhunted to Switzerland to work with a bank there. She is, however, very much involved with the works of Clinton Consultancy. In describing their roles, Amanda said her sister does more of the 'serious works', and she is more known for profile cases.
In all, their key areas of practice are gold fraud and gold exportation, lobbying at the highest level of government, market-entry, business and industry, construction, infrastructure and transport, energy and natural resources, financial institutions and capital markets, litigation and dispute resolution, pensions, employment and immigration, technology, media and telecommunications.
Amanda Clinton becoming the first female Ghana Football Association (GFA) presidential aspirant
Source: UGC
Amanda made history in 2019 when she became the first woman to contest the Ghana Football Association (GFA) presidential election.
The beautiful lawyer initially got to work with the GFA as their international lawyer after an interpreter recommended her to the association. She represented GFA as they filed a formal petition at FIFA in Zurich, Switzerland, when the government of Ghana was in the formal process of liquidating GFA.
Having been exposed to the proceedings of the association, Amanda believed she had to pay heed to the massive media call for a new GFA leader who would be clean and could handle executive administrative duties with integrity. With that resolve, she decided to run for the association's presidency. Little did she know she would make history as the first woman ever to aspire for the role.
"From a legal perspective, I thought to myself that it's just an administrative role, and it requires integrity which most lawyers have, so let me just run for it. So I picked up the form, which was $1000, but I spent close to $5000 in all, including expenses from the campaign.
"I didn't think it through, but I thought that even at international and local levels, integrity matters, and it's about corporate sponsors buying into the new face, so I took part in it, and I don't regret it", Amanda told YEN.com.gh.
Although she did not win, her confidence to run for what she believed needed to be done attracted a lot of media attention to her brand and gave her international recognition as the first female GFA presidential aspirant.
Amanda Clinton's class action against Menzgold
Source: Twitter
Amanda is better known for her class action suit on behalf of local and international investors against Menzgold Ghana Limited, a gold dealership and investment firm founded by Nana Appiah Mensah, which was shut down by the government in 2018 for operating illegally. The company's collapse caused thousands of its customers to lose their investments.
The international lawyer told YEN.com.gh that a German-Ghanaian man who had also invested in Menzgold reached out to her to represent him, and once she started with his case, a lot more people who had also been affected got in touch with her to represent them.
"The CID wasn't doing much so I was publishing articles about the case on popular websites and the other clients found me through that. It was organic", she said.
She said over 150 people approached her regarding Menzgold, and a class action suit was served. Throughout the process, she had three main frustrations:
"First, there were many delays, so the case was not moving. Also, money wasn't being retrieved, and lastly the language government officials were trying to propagate online was that 'this is what happens to greedy people, go your way' and that wasn't helping."
Being concerned about the plight of her clients, Amanda resorted to putting out articles about the situation. Thankfully, after several publications, the narrative changed to an extent, but unfortunately, it was too late to retrieve the lost money.
Lawyer Amanda Clinton's Advice to up and coming Lawyers
Source: UGC
Amanda attributes the success of her sister, Bianca, and herself to the fact that they accepted that they were unique and did not try to compete with their colleagues.
"We have made more impact because we chose to be unique rather than compete with others. When you are unique, your clients will find you. This is a very important organic lesson to learn about business", she told YEN.com.gh.
The top lawyer added that everyone had their own unique personality, which would be reflected in the type of firm they set up and how they would communicate their message to the firm.
According to her, people need to be authentic to their background, who they are and what they want to do in order to attract clients.
She added: "Choosing to follow the crowd will not give your firm a soul for clients to be attracted to."
Amanda Clinton: Renowned Lawyer Ties Knot With Pilot, Beautiful White Wedding Photos Emerge
YEN.com.gh earlier reported that Amanda and her partner, Jean-Paul Amegashie, completed their nuptials with a beautiful wedding ceremony. The elegant wonderland-themed wedding was held in Accra in April 2022.
Even though the couple married under the ordinance and had a short service on the theme "purposeful love", it was a plush ceremony.
Lawyer Amanda Clinton's Identical Twin Sister Marries Fiancé; Beautiful Photos Emerge
In September 2021, Amanda’s twin sister, Bianca Akweley, tied the knot with Rexford Tetteh Allotey, a marketing director, in beautiful garden nuptials themed, "a match made in heaven".
The ceremony was attended by members of the diplomatic corps and senior members of leading political parties in Ghana.
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Source: YEN.com.gh
