Two years after successfully defending American actress Amber Heard, a ‘amazing’ Australian human rights lawyer has exposed the horrific threats she still receives.
Jennifer Robinson, well known for defending Julian Assange for a decade, defended Heard in Johnny Depp’s libel case against The Sun in 2020.
Despite the fact that she hasn’t been involved in the celebrity case in years, Ms Robinson is now again facing hateful threats and trolls, with hundreds of Johnny Depp followers bombarding her social media with cruel comments.
In a separate trial last week, a US jury convicted Heard guilty of defaming Depp in an article published in the Washington Post in 2018, in which she claimed to be a victim of domestic abuse.
Depp was awarded a total of $U15million ($A20.9million) in damages, out of a potential $US50million ($A69million), after he won on all three counts of his defamation trial.
Heard was awarded $US2million ($A2.8million) after the jury found a statement made by one of Depp’s lawyers calling her accusations a ‘hoax’ to a British tabloid was defamatory.
Ms Robinson’s situation worsened almost immediately after the verdict was handed down in a Virginia court.
Users voiced their displeasure with her continuous support for Heard in the comments section of her most recent Instagram post, a photo of London’s cityscape.
One commenter wrote, “Jen, tell Amber Heard that me and all my female friends love Johnny Depp more than ever.”
‘Imagine being a supporter of a lie! ‘Get yourself awakened,’ wrote a second.
‘Anyone who backs Amber Turd ought to rot in jail,’ stated a third.
‘It’s horrible how an educated gorgeous woman supports an awful woman who lies and abuses others,’ said a fourth.
One especially unpleasant remark urged that Ms Robinson commit suicide.
Dozens of comments with ‘#JusticeForJohnny’ also dominated her post.
There were a few messages of support among the deluge of hostile comments.
One person wrote, ‘Wow Johnny Depp fans are really disgusting.’
Rebekah Giles, a well-known Australian defamation lawyer, also spoke up for her buddy.
‘Jen Robinson is a clever and competent lawyer. Ms Giles told the Sydney Morning Herald, “She is being unfairly subjected to gendered abuse for simply performing her job.”
Ms Robinson, who grew up in the small town of Berry, around 140 kilometers south of Sydney, uses her Instagram Stories to identify and shame internet bullies on a regular basis.
On Monday, she posted a touching message from Whitney Heard, in which she expressed her admiration for her sister for standing up for herself in both Virginia and the United Kingdom.
‘We knew that this was going to be an uphill battle and that the cards were stacked against us. But you stood up and spoke out regardless,’ Whitney wrote on Instagram.
In an interview with MailOnline in 2020, Ms Robinson detailed the misogynistic abuse and death threats she and her A-list client had received during the libel trial.
‘I thought it was a sad reflection on our culture that we had to have security even though Amber was a witness and not on trial herself,’ she recounted.
‘We had police protection on several days.’ People were throwing objects at our car and yelling insults at us; we even passed a large billboard with her face on it that said, “Ditch the Witch.”
Ms Robinson has worked with a slew of celebrities, including Amber Heard.
In 2010, the Australian lawyer met Julian Assange, who informed her he was intending to disclose top-secret diplomatic cables detailing backroom dealings between embassies.
“Jen, I’ve got a quarter of a million diplomatic cables and I’m about to publish them,” said an Australian wearing a bag. The United States will pursue me to the ends of the earth and make my life hell”,’ she recalled.
‘Once he published, Julian was the most wanted man in the world. They were freezing his bank accounts and I was getting death threats – though the abuse I’ve had from working with Amber is worse.’
The Australian lawyer recently lifted the lid on the gender bias she has fought throughout her entire legal career, including the ‘downright straightforward’ suggestion she had ‘slept her way to the top’.
‘I was surprised by how many people seemed to infer that the only reason I could be there was because of the way I looked when I arrived at a prestigious clerkship in Sydney, my first job at a big expensive law company,’ she said at an International Women’s Day lunch in Perth in May.
Ms Robinson is considered as Hollywood’s go-to lawyer, and she considers Amal Clooney a close friend after the two collaborated on the Assange case.
In 2014, she was seen on a boat with Bill Murray being carried to Ms Clooney’s wedding, a far cry from her humble roots in northern NSW.
She earned a double degree in law and Asian studies from the Australian National University, and she now works as a lawyer.
She later became a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, attending Balliol College and graduating with a Bachelor of Civil Law with Distinction and a Master of Philosophy in International Public Law.
In 2019, she was named international pro bono barrister of the year and prior to the Covid-19 lockdown, was pictured at events with Prince Charles and Cherie Blair.
She previously worked at Finers Stephens Innocent LLP in London and has subsequently established herself as one of the UK’s most well-known human rights and media lawyers.
Her present firm was formed by Geoffrey Robertson QC, an Australian-born ex-Rhodes Scholar with whom she has worked for almost six years.
Ms Robinson provides international law advice to clients, has testified before the International Court of Justice, and has delivered expert testimony at the United Nations and in Parliament.
She focuses on ‘free expression and civil liberties, counseling media organizations, journalists, and whistle-blowers on all elements of media law,’ according to her bio.