Born 1 March 1948 in North Queensland the eldest of five boys, Lawlor moved to Southport as a small child. Lawlor's family were a self-identified 'Labor family', throughout his childhood in the 1950s and 1960s the family handed out how-to-vote cards in Southport which was a safe conservative district. In 1962 he attended the only local high school, Southport State High school, for one year and became the junior athletics champion of the school. He then completed the last three years of high school as a boarder student at Marist Brothers in Ashgrove, Brisbane. After graduation Lawlor worked for the Commonwealth Bank and studied economics at the University of Queensland but did not complete the degree.