Lawyer makes sure business is a pleasure

Feb 4 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal

Talented Newcastle lawyer Lucy Winskell has a passion for work and for the North-East, as Karen Dent discovered.

LOSING her enthusiasm for what she’s doing is Lucy Winskell’s greatest fear, but that seems unlikely to happen any time soon.

“I love the law, it really is the most rewarding, fascinating job you could have,” she says.

Words like “love”, “passionate” and “fabulous” pepper this 44-year-old lawyer’s speech – and there is plenty going on in her life to inspire such reactions.

A licensing and gaming specialist at Sintons Solicitors in Newcastle, Winskell also works as a consultant with the College of Law in addition to serving on the boards of organisations as diverse as the Arts Council North-East and the Darlington Building Society. She is also a governor at her old school in Gosforth and is heavily involved in the British American Project (BAP), a networking organisation which aims to enrich the relationship between the two countries and to which she is deeply committed.

She is currently UK chairman of BAP and last year she organised the group’s first conference in the North-East.

“We wanted to show off this fabulous region to members of the British American Project, who were mostly from the south, and we wanted to show it off to our American colleagues,” she explains.

“It took a couple of years to pull together a cohort of people and to organise this amazing conference which took place in November last year.

“We were just so amazed by the reaction that we received from the US and UK visitors who didn’t know the North-East, who didn’t know Newcastle.

“They were just astonished by the beauty of the city, everything that was going on. The most gratifying thing to me afterwards was the letters that poured in saying ‘I had no idea; now I understand what it is about the North-East, now I get it’,” she says.

“I’m enormously proud of the success of that conference. We had two aims – to put Newcastle-Gateshead on the map and to have some lasting impact on the region.

“I still pinch myself. How did I get into this? How did I get involved with these incredible high achievers? I’ve just loved it. I’ve found it a really rewarding experience. It’s incredibly energising and stimulating.”

North-East born and bred, Winskill is a passionate advocate of the region. She was educated at Westfield School in Gosforth and studied law at Newcastle University, leaving the city briefly to complete her training at Guildford College of Law in Surrey and for short stints working in London and Leeds.

“I wanted to practice law here, at first initially, and I liked it so much I stayed,” she said. “I’m a home bird. I’m close to my family. I was the youngest of three and I wanted to be close to my relatively elderly parents.”

Many young lawyers who come from the North-East start their careers elsewhere and regional firms can struggle to recruit young talent. “A lot of the ones that we lure back – and the word is back – have a connection or their husband or wife has a connection and then it becomes very competitive, because these very well qualified young lawyers have their pick really. It is a competitive market,” she says.

“There has been a steady flow back – young, talented lawyers get to a certain stage when they want to get out of London, when they have quite a young family and they think, ‘do I really want to bring up a family in London?’”

The daughter – and granddaughter – of a lawyer, Winskell was the only one in her family to follow in her father’s footsteps.

“I used to talk to my father about his work. Sometimes at the weekends, we would go and look at properties he might be buying for clients or he would take me out to see buildings he might be working on.

“I decided, ‘it’s interesting, why not do a law degree – most people see that in itself as a valuable thing to have – and see where it takes us’.

“Maybe I’ve been lucky in the type of work that I’ve done, and the colleagues and clients that I’ve had. That’s not to say that it’s been easy – it’s really challenging and demanding.

“But with a challenging and demanding job comes great rewards. I’m very focused about my work. Is my job my life? It’s very, very important to me. I couldn’t imagine not working.”

Heading the licensing and gambling team with colleague Sarah Smith, Winskell is a partner at Sintons, which she joined in 2004 from Eversheds.

She and Smith, who act for clients including Alnwick Castle and Newcastle United Football Club – whose iconic home sits opposite the Sintons building – are rated as ‘top tier’ by the Legal 500 and Chambers.

The leisure sector is obviously feeling slightly twitchy about the economic slowdown – Winskill refuses to call it a recession – though she admits: “I am anxious about it.”

“There are a proliferation of bars, restaurants and late night venues in the North-East and if people start economising, some of those businesses may be affected. I’ve got an eye on the economy generally and how it’s going to affect my work, but I’m not panicking.

“The good, well-run operations will survive as they always have. I worry more for the less accomplished operators, who will not adapt. Fortunately, I work with some of the real experts.”

The region’s economy is a particular point of interest and Lucy, who is married with two grown-up stepsons, was appointed to the board of Darlington Building Society last year.

She credits the MBA she studied at Durham Business School – after winning a scholarship in The Journal in 2004 – with opening a different type of door for her.

“The MBA has been the entry to some of the roles I have taken on more recently. That qualification helped me to get appointments in the first place. Maybe it gave me more confidence that I can play an appropriate role.”

She pauses for a moment when asked if there is still a glass ceiling for female lawyers: “If you look at the bald statistics – and I’m talking nationally, not just in Newcastle – then nationally, it’s still front-page news in the Lawyer or the Law Society Gazette when a woman becomes a senior partner.

“But I see that breaking down all around me. I think it may have existed when I started my career in the 80s. I question whether it’s still there now. I’ve had very supportive colleagues in the two firms I have worked in, both male and female, and I’ve seen women progress in both those firms.”

Indeed, her sex has never been an issue for Lucy, although she has achieved a number of firsts, including becoming the first female president of the Newcastle Law Society in 1999.

“I was really proud,” she says, “because my father had been too. My mother was bursting with pride.”

Her diverse workload has also included eight years as chair of the law society’s international human rights committee from 1998-2006. She has worked particularly closely with lawyers in Kenya and Zimbabwe. She says: “Lawyers have been persecuted – they have been threatened, beaten up, imprisoned because they have been associated with their clients’ causes. In Zimbabwe recently, the woman president of the Zimbabwe Law Society has been regularly beaten up.”

She is also concerned about the death sentence in some US states, which she says have a track record for flawed trials for children and adults with learning difficulties. She says she is worried about the “woefully” inadequate legal representation they receive.

Closer to home, Lucy is the immediate past chair of the Children’s Foundation and she continues to work as a trustee for the charity. This work, she says, is something she is “passionate” about. Her interest in the next generation is echoed by her continued work as a governor at her alma mater, Westfield School.

“I firmly believe in private education although I recognise the challenge that the fees present to many families.”

She is also a passionate supporter of single-sex education: “I got a lot out of it.

“You form your opinions and judgements on your own experience, and I thrived in that environment. I see girls at Westfield thriving, doing really well.

“They are coming out as confident, well educated, accomplished young women and I think part of that is a single-sex education. Seeing people develop and maximise their opportunities – that’s always been really, really rewarding.”

Winskell admits she has a lot on her plate, but says: “I have taken a look at things and thought ‘that’s not for me’. If I’m not really interested, I have turned things down. It’s a two-way thing – am I interested and can I bring something to it? I am busy but I have lots of fun as well. I set the alarm early. There’s a great work-life balance.”

She adds: “Everything I’ve done, I’ve loved. I’d hate to wake up in the morning and think ‘Oh God, I’ve got to go to work’.”

PAGE TWO: The Questionnaire.