Angel Beswick-Reid: Spreading her wings

A little girl watched her father — an attorney — defend his clients fearlessly and decided that she wanted to be as fearless as her father. At eight years old her father reprimanded her for misbehaving by denying her the usual pocket change. She was resolute in her defiance initially, but after weeks of being unable to buy snacks from the shop, the little girl finally caved in and wrote her dad a heartfelt letter of apology, signed, “Your future attorney-at-law”.

As fate would have it, the little girl did grow up to become a lawyer, just like her dad. But after years of studying diligently, overcoming failure, and sacrificing another beloved career to keep this promise, she realised that law did not bring her the joy she had imagined it would.

At the age of 36, Angel Beswick-Reid is no longer the little girl with gavel-shaped stars in her eyes. She told All Woman just ahead of Father’s Day why, in the midst of a global pandemic, she flew from beneath her father’s wings to soar on her own.

“I wanted to be like dad,” she said, ‘dad’ being Paul Beswick, managing partner at Ballantyne, Beswick & Company. “But then when I was 12 my kindergarten teacher said, ‘Angel, come and help me during summer school’. I did, and that’s when I fell madly in love with teaching.”

So she decided that she would become a teacher first, then return to school to study law. In her prepubescent mind this plan would allow her to do what she loved first, then allow her to take on what might as well be considered the family trade, seeing that her mother is Supreme Court judge Justice Carol Lawrence-Beswick, and her sister Wendy is an immigration attorney practising in Jamaica and the United States.

“I went to Rollins College in Florida and I did a bachelor of arts in elementary education and English,” she shared. “I have always enjoyed writing, and have been successful at it in various points in my life.”

As a teen Beswick-Reid blossomed as a writer under the tutelage of the late Caribbean literary genius and Jamaica Observer columnist Wayne Brown through the Observer Literary Arts programme, which Brown founded in 1998.

Still, she was bent on following in her father’s footsteps. After acquiring her degree and teaching in Florida for a year, Beswick-Reid returned home to teach at her alma mater, Immaculate Conception Preparatory, for three years before she enrolled in law school.

“While I was at the Faculty of Law, one of the teachers at Immaculate passed away and the principal asked if I would consider coming back. I said yes, because I had really missed the children, my colleagues, and just the joy of being in the classroom,” she admitted.

By this time Beswick-Reid, who had been married for four years prior, was expecting her first child. But even as a pregnant full-time teacher she would not renege on the promise that she made to her father. She continued law school.

“So I would teach, then jump in the car and race up to UWI [The University of the West Indies] just in time for classes,” she recalled animatedly. “I had morning sickness throughout the entire pregnancy, so it was rough. To date, that was the most challenging period because by that time I was at Norman Manley Law School, and it was really tough.”

In the midst of her multitasking efforts, she failed a crucial exam and found herself with a book in one hand and her baby in the other just days after giving birth, cramming for the exam resit.

“But I made it out. I passed and got into year two,” Beswick-Reid said triumphantly.

After passing the bar, she resigned from teaching and started practising civil advocacy at her dad’s law firm. Finally, she was the fearless lawyer that she dreamed of becoming. But she was in for a rude awakening.

“It wasn’t what I expected at all from day one,” she said glumly. “I kept waiting for something to crystalise and I could say to myself, ‘Yes, this is it!’ I had grown up with this image of me being in the court like dad, and I soon found out that 90 per cent of the work was done at a desk in your office, all alone. It was such a culture shock for me, coming from an environment where I had the sounds of laughter and children playing around me.”

She even came to dread her rare court days, as she found the constant combative arguments emotionally draining. She very much preferred to be the mediator that she often had to be in the classroom.

“It just was not bringing me joy,” she said flatly. “And having had joy before, the restlessness was slowly building up.”

It built up for five years as Bewsick-Reid rotely went through the motions. She was unhappy, but she was fearful that quitting would disrupt her husband’s and son’s lives, and she would disappoint her father.

“Then the COVID-19 lockdown happened, and we were spending more time at home,” she said. “I had tons of reflection time, and my heart sank at the thought of going back into that office.”

After breaking down while typing yet another lengthy legal document one day, she sought the counsel of her supportive husband of ten years, who encouraged her to follow her heart.

“In my resignation letter, I wrote to my father as a daughter,” she remembered emotionally. “I said, ‘Daddy, I am not happy in law. I don’t want to disappoint you, but this is not your employee saying she is leaving, but this is your daughter saying she is not happy, and I need your blessing, as my father, to set me free’. And he gave me his blessing. He said he had known for a while that this is not what brought me joy. I was free.”

Having come full circle, Beswick-Reid admitted that she has no idea what she is going to do next, besides making the most of the time she has with her family until she leaves the nest to soar on the winds of change.

She is also using this time to impact the lives of children, after being appointed as a director on the board of the Maxfield Park Children’s Home late last year.

“I really want to be a part of transformative change there,” she said earnestly. “A lot of my time, now that I’m free from law, is spent networking on behalf of the home and advocating for the children.”

Despite not knowing what position she will occupy next, Beswick-Reid is sure about the impact that she wants to have.

“Daddy has always been my role model in advocacy,” she said resolutely. “I had in mind from a very young age that being an attorney meant being fearless and defending people because that’s what daddy did. But I now know that being an attorney is not the only way to do that. I am happy with my decision to resign, because I know it was the right one. I am excited to see what’s next for me.”