A teenager from the US has become one of the youngest people to qualify for the bar, according to recent reports.

High flier Gabrielle Turnquest has not only become the first person to qualify for the bar at the age of 18, she has also been given a choice of countries to practice in.

Turnquest was always something of a child prodigy and has made history in the past at her previous university, Liberty, in Virginia, where she became the youngest person at the university to finish an undergraduate degree in psychology, at the tender age of 16.

The average lawyer undertakes the Bar Professional Training Course when they are 27.

Her case proves just how possible it is to rise to the top of your field or qualifications, with determination and persistence.

Turnquest said that she is keen to practice law in America, but is also able to explore the possibility of working in the Bahamas where her parents are from.

Gabrielle took the bar training course, at the University of Law, along with her sister Kandi, who also passed her exams at the slightly older age of 22.

The teenager told of how she eventually hopes to specialise in fashion law.
She said: “I am honoured to be the youngest person to pass the Bar exams but, really, I was not aware at the time what the average age was. I didn’t fully realise the impact of it.”

If Turnquest wanted to work in the UK,  she would still have to carry out a pupillage at a chambers for at least a year and then be granted a tenancy.

Traditionally, a trainee lawyer had to be 21 before being able to qualify for the Bar but that was scrapped in 2009 with the introduction of the Bar Training Regulations.

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