Meet the team
ELP is a new, not-for-profit venture from the Legal Services team of the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The team is headed by the Director of Governance and Law.
Underneath sit three Heads of Law, one each for Commercial Law, Family Law, and Litigation and Public Law.
Each Head of Law manages a specialist team in their area of expertise.
As a customer of ELP, you will benefit from this solid structure of management, which has proven itself to ensure that clients receive timely and expert advice on all legal matters.
The Management Team
Mark Hynes
Director of Governance and Law
Mark is the Director of Governance and Law at the London Borough of Waltham Forest A solicitor since 1988, Mark worked for four years in the private sector as a commercial lawyer with Eversheds, before joining local government.
He has worked at every local authority tier at borough: county and unitary level. This included 11 years as the Director of Corporate Affairs at the London Borough of Lambeth, and four years as the City Solicitor at Peterborough City Council.
Mark is a Director of Solace (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives) and Solicitor to the Board. Mark is also past President of Lawyers in Local Government (LLG).
He was awarded the Legal 500 Public Sector Lawyer of the Year in 2014.
Kim Travis
Assistant Director - Litigation and Public Law
Kim has worked as a local government lawyer since 1998, initially as a childcare lawyer but expanding her practice areas to include adult social care, mental health, education law, information law, governance and public law, litigation, housing, and employment law.
Kim hold the Law Society Diploma in Local Government Law and GDPR Practitioners Certificate. She is the Lead Legal Advisor on information law and public law matters such as consultation and public sector equality duty. Kim has been Deputy Monitoring Officer for the London Borough of Waltham Forest since 2011, providing support to the Monitoring Officer, senior officers and members, in matters of corporate governance.
Jeremy Walling
Assistant Director - Commercial Law
Jeremy joined the London Borough of Waltham Forest in 1983 as an administration trainee. He started in the Legal Services team in 1984 and was admitted as a solicitor in 1993. He has worked primarily in the commercial areas, specialising first in property law and then in contracts and procurement. These areas remain his current areas of practice alongside local government law and governance.
Jeremy holds the Law Society Diploma in Local Government Law.
Shola James
Assistant Director - Family Law
Shola is the Head of the Family Law team. She qualified as a solicitor in 1998 and has a broad range of experience in both the public and private sector in various aspects of family law. Shola has worked in local government since 2006, initially as a childcare lawyer and then as the principal lawyer with overall management responsibility for the team.
She has developed specialist experience in childcare law, having dealt with a range of complex cases. She also has experience in adult community care matters, dealing with the Court of Protection and other cases. Shola provides advice to the Waltham Forest Safeguarding Board on both serious case reviews and safeguarding adult reviews.
She has been a member of the Law Society's Children Panel Accreditation Scheme (Local Authority) and has a diploma in Local Government Law as well as a Masters in Law (LLM).
Support Team
Cynthia Bruno-Gaston
Business Manager
Cynthia joined the London Borough of Waltham Forest's Legal Services in June 2016 and reports to the Director of Governance and Law.
Cynthia is on the management team and covers a range of areas including; service legal agreements, project management, information governance, financial management and legal audit
Thameena Awan
Systems Support Paralegal
Thameena joined the London Borough of Waltham Forest's Legal Services team as a business administration apprentice in January 2018 and successfully completed a City & Guilds Level 3 Diploma in Business Administration in March 2019.
Thameena now works as the Systems Support Paralegal supporting all three legal teams.
Shanna-Kaye Lawrence
Systems Support Paralegal
Shanna-Kaye joined the London Borough of Waltham Forest's Legal Services team as a Business Administration Apprentice in July 2019 and reports to the Business Systems Support Officer. Shanna-Kaye studied towards a City and Guilds Level 3 Diploma in Business Administration while working within the Legal Services department and completed her apprenticeship with us in December 2020.
Stephen Christopher
Legal Technical Systems Support Officer
Stephen works as the Legal Technical Systems Support Officer supporting all three legal teams.
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