The granddaughter of a trailblazing barrister followed in her footsteps when she was Called to the Bar yesterday.

Ariana Caines pledged to live up to the legacy of her late grandmother Dame Lois Browne-Evans, the first Black woman barrister in Bermuda and a civil rights campaigner, as she was sworn in the building that bears Dame Lois’ name.

Chief Justice Narinder Hargun wished Ms Caines well on her new journey as a barrister.

He added: “Yours is a truly remarkable story and you should be very proud.”

Ms Caines, 26, said afterwards that, although she spent much of her life immersed in the legacy of her “Nana”, she never felt stuck in her shadow.

Ms Caines said: “Her legacy was never daunting – it was always inspiring and a blessing.

“I’m incredibly blessed to have her legacy, but my grandmother was always a believer in 'to thine own self be true’ and I never felt like I had to be her.

“She never came to us with airs, she never came to us like 'I’m the Dame’ – she was my Nana and so it was always a very loving and warm environment.”

Ms Caines added: “I hope to just be of service, however Bermuda needs me.

“I’m here, I’m ready and it’s always been my goal that, after getting experience in the UK, I would come back here to Bermuda and serve.

“I’m not sure what that would look like, but I’m grateful for whatever comes next.”

Ms Caines, from Southampton, was Called to the Bar during a ceremony at the Dame Lois Browne-Evans Building on Court Street in Hamilton.

The ceremony was attended by family and fellow barristers, who erupted into applause minutes after Ms Caines was sworn in.

Ms Caines, who moved back to Bermuda from the UK earlier this year to work in the technology advisory branch of Bermuda Asset Management, said she was “eternally grateful” for the support of her family and other barristers.

She added that, although her grandmother had inspired her to become a barrister, she did not realise how important Dame Lois was until her death in 2007.

Ms Caines said: “I remember thinking ’why are all of these people in the street to stare at my nana’s casket?’ but it was not until I started my research into her that I began to learn who my Nana was.

“It is my greatest hope that through my efforts I have done right through her legacy.”

Ms Caines, a former head girl at the Berkeley Institute in Pembroke, completed her law degree at the University of Buckingham in the UK with first class honours.

She won the Shirley D Simmons Legal Education Award from legal firm Trott & Duncan in 2016 and went on to do her Bar professional training course at BPP University in Manchester – which she also completed with flying colours.

Ms Caines did her pupillage at Carmelite Chambers in London after she won the Bermuda Bar Association’s Dame Lois Browne-Evans Criminal Pupillage Award.

She later worked at Bright Line Law, also in London, where she specialised in financial and white-collar crime and developed an interest in cryptoassets and blockchain technology.

Ms Caines is also a member of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, one of the four Inns of Court that call aspiring lawyers to the Bar of England & Wales, and once sat on their Equality, Diversity and Social Mobility Committee.

She was also the diversity and inclusion officer for the Middle Temple Young Barristers Association.

Dame Lois, who was Called to the Bar in 1953, became the island’s first Black female Parliamentarian in 1963 and the first woman to become Attorney-General in 1999.

She also received international recognition as the first female Leader of the Opposition in the British Commonwealth after she became leader of the Progressive Labour Party in 1968.

Dame Lois was declared the first national hero in 2008.