Laurie-Anne Power, who was told by a teacher to focus on sport because she had no academic future, has become a barrister and won a Senior Leader award at the Black British Business Awards 2026. She now dedicates part of her career to helping people from similar backgrounds enter the profession.
Early setback at school
When Power was 11, she was made to stand outside her school because she arrived wearing a headscarf, in keeping with her Rastafarian family’s culture. The headteacher refused to allow her onto the premises with it. She recalls: “I was 11 years old, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I didn’t know how to articulate it, but I knew that it felt like injustice.”
At home, she was close with her grandfather, part of the Windrush generation, who worked at the Co-op milk factory. Every evening, they watched the news together, and he eventually told her: “God, you talk so much, you must be a lawyer when you grow up.”
Determination to prove doubters wrong
As a teenager, she confided in a teacher that she wanted to become a barrister and was starkly told she should focus on sport. The words stung but made her more determined. She often felt labelled as difficult in class, saying: “I was probably voicing my opinion as strongly as you would need to if you were to be a lawyer, but back then it was seen as disruptive.”
A history teacher’s stern but well-meaning warning in her final year served as a wake-up call. He told her: “If you don’t stop f***ing around, you’re gonna mess your life up.” After good GCSE and A Level results, she took a break when she became pregnant at 19. She returned to her studies as a single mum with family support and qualified as a barrister in 2000.
Career and family balance
Within a decade, Power worked as a consultant with the United Nations-linked Special Court for Sierra Leone on the use of child soldiers and sexual slavery during the civil war. She later had her son Noah, born at 25 weeks, and stepped away from work to care for him. She reflects: “When there is a time for me to put the job on the back burner and be there for my children, there’s no case on Earth that’s going to stop that. There’s no judge that’s going to stop me.”
A few years ago, after taking silk in 2022, she saw one of her former teachers outside the Old Bailey. She wrote for Counsel Magazine in 2024: “Although now in his early 80s, I immediately knew that it was him. It’s safe to say that he was as shocked to see me in my barrister robes.” She added: “I had never held him personally responsible for the trauma of my formative education, but he was the head of an institution that stifled the dreams and ambitions of many of my peers.”
Recognition and ongoing fight for equality
Power has “lost friends and gained allies” in her pursuit of equality. She says: “I’ve lost friends when I’ve challenged that narrative. When I speak about equality, diversity and integration, I’m speaking about it from every single aspect, not just from a race perspective.” She adds: “I think the Bar is changing. It’s far more accessible than it used to be. But we still have a long way to go.”
She won the Senior Leader award in the Professional Services category at the Black British Business Awards on October 9. She says: “I’m very proud to be even just to be considered in the same breath as some of these extraordinary women. I would never have been able to even perceive that that was possible, 27 years ago.”
