There were tears and laughter in the courtroom yesterday as Celia Tuzo and Benjamin Jack Green were Called to the Bar.

There was barely even standing room in commercial court 1 for the Calling of Celia Tuzo, a mature student who described a challenging journey getting to where she was.

The journey began 23 years ago, she said, when her sister reminded her that she had bought law books and was ready to study. But when she had her daughter Elizabeth, she became her priority.

In 2008, she began studying law part-time while working and in 2010 she went to study full time at the University of Kent in England.

“This was my first time attending any sort of University,” she said and it was the same year that her daughter began her first year of studies. Even though I had the practical side of doing law for 20 years the academic side was brutal.”

She then said, with tears in her eyes, that the low point was having her confidence “shattered” when she had to resit exams while returning to study in 2013.

“My dream felt like it was slipping away when a week before sitting that exam I was slapped with two more resists, missing a pass by 0.5 of a point. I started questioning my intelligence.”

She was working with the Human Rights Commission while studying for the exams and spent every lunch hour with her notes and books and spent her evenings in study.

Then, it was on the second day of Cup Match she found out she had been successful.

“A friend said ‘if it was easy, everyone would do it’.

“I was not born with a silver spoon,” she said. “I have worked very hard to reach this point in my career.”

She thanked her daughter, family members who helped her and Wendell Hollis with whom she did her pupillage with the team at Hollis Corporate Services. As for Mr Green, he was introduced to the court by lawyer Ben Adamson as a bit of a heavyweight in the field.

“It was a play on words as Mr Green is a trained boxer. Mr Adamson said that he had displayed “real courage and tenacity.

“He can roll with the punches and he is willing to stick his neck out — virtues which will place him in good stead in any career but particularly at the Bar.

“In addition to using his fists he got a 2:1 at King’s College London and straight As at A-level. He is clearly bright so even though he enjoys being punched in the head you can be assured that he has thought it through,” to which the attendees burst into laughter.

Mr Green graduated from King’s College, London and enjoyed his pupillage with Conyers, Dill and Pearman. He is now grappling with whether to specialise in litigation or arbitration and has a special interest in contentious corporate work.

He has also enrolled to be a commissioner.

He told the court: “Today I am truly honoured and humbled.

“To achieve such a prestigious designation is a source of great pride and it is an achievement I will cherish for the rest of my life.

“I would not be standing before you if it were not for the efforts of those standing around me today.

“Primarily that would be my parents without whom I would not be standing here today. I can not repay them for their guidance support and generosity.

“Unfortunately my dad couldn’t be here today but he was always supportive and enthusiastic and I know nothing would have made him prouder of being here today.”

He also thanked his many teachers as well as the lawyers and staff at Conyers, and Sedgwick Chudleigh, which took him on as a student.