My initial motivation for pursuing a career in law was simply that at school I liked subjects such as English and History and people suggested to me that these subjects might have transferable skills for a career in law, so I decided to study law at university and really enjoyed it.
I didn’t have awareness of the impact of ethnicity in my career progression, but it became very clear to me that this would be a barrier to entry very early on.
The main motivating factor for me going into law was that I wanted to have a tangible impact on African development specifically. I was strongly influenced by the fact that I was born in Zambia and I grew up there during my formative years so I was always fascinated by how it strived to develop as a nation.
I am very much a people person as well, so this was a motivation for pursuing a career in law. A career in law encourages you to not only build good relationships with clients but also other lawyers and other professionals at networking events for example.
I knew that because I am Black it will be harder for me, that goes without saying. I can’t speak for all ethnic minorities, but specifically for Black people themes include the negative stereotypes surrounding what is expected of you and people’s beliefs as to what a ‘lawyer’ is supposed to look like.
I knew early on that the legal profession has a reputation for being biased – lots of my contemporaries on the BPTC were going into immigration, crime and family. I wanted to secure pupillage at commercial and chancery sets, something I did not manage.
For me, it was a case of trying to choose a profession. I was fortunate to be at a good school, and went back and forth between medicine and law. I chose a lot of the sciences at A-levels in case I decided that I wanted to go on to study medicine, but law seemed to be the most interesting from an academic perspective.
My mother was a lawyer in Sri Lanka and there is truth in the saying that ‘lawyers breed lawyers’. I grew up with that influence and therefore it felt natural for me to also progress into the legal industry.
I can’t say I was inspired to get into the law by a deep routed sense of what is right and wrong. I sort of fell into the law almost by accident. When finishing my A Levels I had to pursue a more business oriented course but ended up in law. When I began to understand the different principles in commercial law it piqued my interest.
I am afraid to say that there was no great inspirational motivation other than that I wanted to do something that I would enjoy doing. I didn’t consider whether the career would be viable, just what I thought would be give me personal and professional satisfaction.
