Hashi Mohamed is a Kenyan-born British lawyer, journalist, and writer. Currently, he is a barrister in No5 Chambers based in London.
Background
Hashi Mohamed was born in 1984 in Nairobi, Nairobi Area, Kenya as one of 12 children. Mohamed is a Somali who was born in Kenya, where he lived in a rundown part of Nairobi with his four siblings (another having died), his mother (who also had six children from a previous marriage) and his traveling salesman father. When his father died in a car accident in 1993, Mohamed and three of his siblings were sent to England as refugees. They lived with an aunt and then in various low-rent housing, some of it rat-infested, and were eventually reunited with their mother. A confused and alienated boy, he spent most of his teen years in a state of geographical and psychological dislocation. When he arrived he spoke basic English, attended failing schools and was raised exclusively on state benefits in a deprived area of North West London.
When he was 18, Mohamed gained British citizenship, which meant he could get a passport and travel. So he returned to Nairobi for the first time since he’d buried his father, looking for clues to his identity. He stayed with an uncle who, like his brother (Mohamed’s father), was a natural entrepreneur who had built a thriving business and a large house. His uncle’s multilingual children had attended the best private schools and their lives seemed prepared for them. By contrast, the fatherless Mohamed felt adrift. Yet instead of feeling any resentment, he returned to Britain with renewed inspiration.
Education
Hashi Mohamed went to a struggling comprehensive in north-west London where the headteacher was beaten up and laughed at, but he eventually managed to get a place at the University of Hertfordshire to study law and French. He also studied at Jean Monnet University at Saint-Etienne through Erasmus Program in 2005-2006. From there he was awarded a postgraduate scholarship to the University of Oxford where he received a Master of Science degree in Politics. He also took a Bar Vocational Course at City, University of London in 2009-2010.
Career
Hashi Mohamed is a barrister in No5 Chambers based in London, specializing in planning, and the environment law and commercial litigation.
Hashi Mohamed is an articulate and confident advocate who acts for private employers and institutions, local and central governments, individuals and companies in private and public law disputes.
Hashi Mohamed has a busy United Kingdom domestic practice in Public & Administrative Law; which includes environmental & planning law, local and central government, and human rights & civil liberties. He has been consistently listed as one of the highest-rated planning barristers in England & Wales in the Planning Magazine’s annual Planning Legal Survey.
Hashi Mohamed also works in general commercial litigation. This work includes experience in the High Court (Chancery Division) and County Courts, representing both claimants and defendants in an array of commercially related matters, including contractual disputes, insolvency disputes, and property-related matters. He also undertakes pleading and advisory work in all aspects of commercial litigation, leading negotiations and settlement meetings.
Hashi Mohamed also regularly presents documentaries on BBC Radio 4 and writes in many mainstream publishing outlets, including The Times, The Guardian and Prospect Magazine.
In 2020 Hashi Mohamed's book People Like Us: What it Takes to Make it in Modern Britain was published.
Views
In his debut book People Like Us, Hashi Mohamed explores what his own experience can tell us about social mobility in Britain today. Far from showing that anything is possible, he concludes his story is far from typical: the country is still riven with deep divisions that block children from deprived backgrounds from accessing the advantages that are handed to others from birth.
Confronting the stark statistics that reveal the depth of the problem, the problems of imagination and confidence that compound it, and offering inspirational advice for those hoping to change their own circumstances, Hashi Mohamed's People Like Us is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand modern Britain - and how it could be changed for the better.
Personality
Except for English Hashi Mohamed also speaks Somali which is his mother tongue and French which he studied at University.
Connections
There is no information on whether Hashi Mohamed is married or has any children.