In his own words: Tim Walmsley

In every issue, we hear from a different CILEX member about how they started out and their career journey. Tim Walmsley tells his story

Earlier this year, commercial property lawyer Tim Walmsley became the first CILEX Fellow to join the partnership of South-West firm Stephens Scown.

His career began when he left school and started working for the local council. He spent 25 years in the public sector, advising on major infrastructure projects before he made the move into private practice five years ago. He now specialises in social housing developments, charitable property transactions and heads up the public sector team at Stephens Scown.

“I left school at 16 and joined the local council in Bury. They had a recruitment programme taking on school leavers, who were assigned administrative roles across the organisation. If a permanent job came up, the rules of the programme meant that you had to apply. That’s how I found myself applying for a role as a trainee legal executive in the in-house property team.

Like most of my career, it was unplanned, I had never even considered working in law but my application was successful and I went to college to study with CILEX.

After I qualified, I moved to Manchester City Council. For the next few years, I moved between different local authorities, gaining promotions and building up experience in property law as I went.

Defining moment 

A career-defining moment was when I took a job with Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive, now Transport for Greater Manchester. There was a major tram expansion project planned and I was responsible for working on all of the land acquisitions that were needed to realise it.

Once the tram project was completed, I stayed on, becoming the organisation’s most senior property lawyer. This included advising on a £3bn capital expenditure programme covering bus, rail and cycling infrastructure.

I became involved in project management, working with engineers and planners to deliver major infrastructure projects, often involving the promotion of compulsory purchase orders. It was a major step up and gave me experience that day-to-day local authority work never would have.

I may have fallen into the law but it was working for me. Over the years, I have gained a wide breadth of knowledge and skills, have been exposed to a broad range of work and have met and worked with talented people who have supported me and given me opportunities to progress.

Relocation 

Nine years ago, I found out about a role at Cornwall Council. I’d never considered relocating to the South-West but my wife and a close colleague encouraged me to look into it. I applied and was successful, moving my family and even living in a caravan for the first three months while we sold our house.

After four years, I was managing a team of 14 and heading up the property and highways department. However, I was becoming disillusioned by the way in which local government was progressing, as successive governments reduced funding and introduced changes to working contracts. Besides the endless restructures and redundancy rounds that much of the public sector has endured in recent years, I wasn’t getting time to do the actual legal work that I enjoyed. My time was too often dominated by compiling reports, management responsibilities and meetings.

“The promotion was well received by others in the firm and, on a personal level, a proud moment for someone who started out stuffing envelopes at Bury Council.” When I was approached by Stephen Scown in 2016, I decided to find out more. The firm has a great reputation in the legal sector and, when I was offered a senior associate role,  I decided to make the move into private practice after nearly 25 years in the public sector.

It was great to get back to the transactional legal work that I enjoy. The firm is very supportive and when, a few years into the job, the opportunity to go for partner came up, I had a lot of encouragement to put myself forward. The fact that I was CILEX qualified rather than a solicitor never came up and was never discussed.

It was only when I became the first CILEX Lawyer to be made a partner at the firm that some colleagues even realised that was my background. The promotion was well received by others in the firm and, on a personal level, a proud moment for someone who started out stuffing envelopes at Bury Council.

We have a number of other CILEX Lawyers at Stephens Scown and I am currently a mentor to two of our team who are studying with CILEX. I’m keen to encourage others to go down the CILEX route and I hope that other CILEX members, many of whom work in local authorities across the country, will see that it is possible to make it to partnership level or senior positions with their organisations.

I wasn’t overly academic at school but studying with CILEX suited me. University isn’t for everyone and studying alongside work is a better alternative for a lot of people. Perceptions of CILEX Lawyers have changed over the years and will continue to do so – with the right attitude and application, there are no barriers to the kind of work we can do and to the career paths open to us.”