Proud family members flocked to Sessions House yesterday after four lawyers were Called to the Bar.

Kiernan Bell, managing partner at Appleby, described the pupils as “four very talented, bright, future attorneys and members of the bar”.

During the ceremony in Commercial Court 1, lawyers Max Tetlow, Grant Spurling, Jessica Almeida and Shannon Cann each spoke in turn, thanking their families for their support.

Ms Bell, who put forth the motion that each one be admitted to the Bermuda Bar, opened with a brief biography of their professional and recreational pursuits. Grant Spurling, she said, “will truly have a multitude of experience”. The former reporter, photographer and “ranch wrangler” also trained as a carpenter, finally seeking a career in law after his work left him with carpal tunnel syndrome.

Mr Spurling, an Appleby scholar, studied a year in Chinese law before completing his final year in Canterbury.

He thanked his parents, siblings and wife, who he said “has been an unending source of support”.

Max Tetlow, who Ms Bell “knew as a toddler”, did his pupilage at the Irish Bar before moving to Appleby for his training contract.

He said: “I am honoured and grateful”, thanking mentors at Appleby who “encouraged and fostered” him after what he described as a “sketchy, botched and bumbling first interview”.

While he had a long list of persons to thank, he singled out his mother, calling her his “sole inspiration”.

Borrowing her 35-year-old wig for the occasion, Mr Tetlow said: “I hope it is not too narcissistic to say she did a relatively decent job in raising me.”

Honour Desmond-Tetlow, also an attorney with Mello Jones and Martin, was left to raise him alone after his father passed away when he was young.

Ms Desmond-Tetlow, who sat in the front row, first wore the now-yellowed wig when she was Called to the Bar in Ireland in 1980.

Jessica Almeida, who has been doing work experience in corporate finance at Appleby, said: “I’ve had the privilege of working alongside some of Bermuda’s best legal minds.”

Thanking her aunt, she finished by speaking in Portuguese, so that her family could understand.

Shannon Cann, a former Warwick Academy student, studied law in Bristol, England before joining the litigation department at Appleby.

At 22 years old, she is one of the youngest people to be called to the Bermuda Bar.

Ms Bell commended her for her charity work with Action on Alzheimers and Dementia, telling the court: “She climbs mountains, enjoys bungee jumping and celebrated her accomplishment by jumping out of a perfectly good plane.”

Of her many achievements, Ms Cann said: “The most rewarding and memorable has been reaching this milestone.

“The training I have received [at Appleby] has been nothing short of exceptional. It has increased my confidence and the quality of my work.”

She also thanked her mother, calling her “an angel in the flesh”.

Last year, Ms Cann suffered an illness that made this goal appear “unattainable”. She was hospitalised for two weeks with pneumonia.

Finishing with a favourite poem by Nayirrah Waheed, She read: “You are a power. A force as strong and as strange as any element. Do not shrink. Do not hide. Be the thing you were meant to be.”