In the 1970s Lawlor worked as a clerk for Gold Coast City Council and then travelled to Port Moresby as a customs clerk. After a period working for a small engineering firm in Brisbane he married and moved to work as an accountant in a food franchising company in Durban, South Africa where his first child was born. Lawlor and his family then moved to Brisbane where he worked as an accountant in an insurance company. Through the late 70s he studied law through the Solicitors Board as he could not afford full-time university.