Dr. Anna Barlow is a researcher at Åbo Akademi University in Finland. Her doctoral thesis was a comparative study of legal aid in the Nordic countries, the UK and Ireland from a comparative administrative law perspective.

Anna previously worked for 20 years as a legal aid lawyer in London. She was co-founder and CEO of the not-for-profit solicitors' firm Law For All, which developed innovative delivery methods to enable more clients to be helped under available legal aid funding. Anna worked as a solicitor within the organization, specialising in employment, social security and family law, and also led and managed the legal team, which grew to 50 lawyers at its height. In 2009 she moved to Finland with her family and turned towards academic work, completing a Masters degree in international human rights law before commencing her doctorate.

Anna has taught undergraduate and post-graduate law students in a range of institutions and is a thematic coordinator and the Nordic Regional Coordinator of the Global Access to Justice Project. She has published on legal aid in the Nordic countries, the UK and Ireland.