A student of Royal College Colombo, Upul Jayasuriya joined the Attorney General’s Department as a state counsel in 1978.

In 1978, he was also appointed as the First Legal Adviser of the Greater Colombo Economic Commission, which is the present Board of Investments of Sri Lanka.

During his time the first 70 agreements were executed when Upali Wijewardena was the Founder Chairman of the BOI and then known as the Greater Colombo Economic Commission.

Jayasuriya was the Secretary of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) from 1991 to1993 and elected to the post of the BASL President in February 2013 and led the Bar through one of the challenging periods in the country s legal history.