Lavena Back completed a mini-pupillage at Doughty Street Chambers
A law graduate is set to enter ITV2’s Love Island tonight.
Lavena Back, 23, from Croydon, south London, is one of twelve(!) new cast members joining the popular sun-soaked reality TV show this evening.
The return of rival villa Casa Amor is set to spice things up: the show’s current contestants will split into two villas as six single guys and girls get ready to turn Islanders’ heads, put their romances to the test and attempt to couple-up in order to keep their place on the hit show.
A scan of Back’s LinkedIn profile shows the brunette completed an LLB at Leeds Beckett University, graduating with a 2.1 just two years ago. In a post on her Instagram page, where she has over 10,000 followers, Back says she got on to the course through Clearing: “Did you see what I done… came through clearing… left with a 2:1 ???… #LAWGRADUATE!!!!!,” she writes. Her LinkedIn page goes on to list activities she presumably undertook while at law school in the Northern city, including “law society”, “mentor scheme” and “ambassador”.
It appears Back has also completed a week-long mini-pupillage with famed human rights and criminal set Doughty Street Chambers. “I was exposed to the inner workings of a trial,” she writes on LinkedIn.
Following graduation it appears Back turned her ‘back’ on the law, completing stints as a customer advisor at mobile phone giant EE and a managerial role at Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Before packing her suitcase and jetting off to Majorca (where the show is filmed), it is understood Back worked as a business developer for cloud-based software company NetSuite, and has undertaken various modelling and music video gigs.
Speaking to producers ahead of her appearance on the show, Back says she has been single for four years and admits: “I needed a while to get over my last relationship and really enjoy myself before I could commit to someone. But now I’m very much ready.”
She isn’t lacking in confidence either. “I’m a five times two out of ten. My best feature is my smile”, says Back, who isn’t afraid to step on the other girls’ toes, adding: “I don’t really care. I’m there to find love. As everyone says it’s not Friend Island. I’m not afraid to say it how it is.”
Back isn’t the first legally-minded Love Island contestant to appear on the show. Last series saw Rosie Williams, a newly qualified solicitor at Manchester-based law firm Just Costs Solicitors, enter the Spanish villa. Williams, who refers to herself as “Legally Brunette” in several of her Instagram posts, was on the show for just 16 days before being booted out. Since then she hasn’t ruled out a return to the law, and attended our glitzy Awards ceremony earlier this year.
You can catch Love Island, which is narrated by University of Edinburgh law grad Iain Stirling, on weekdays and Sundays on ITV2 from 9pm.
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