The practice
The practice, and the person who runs it
Lee Vallender
Director
lee@devol-legal.co.uk- Licensing
- Enforcement
- Governance
- Markets Regulation
- Transformation
- Regulatory Strategy
Barrister, called in 2005. 15+ years advising public sector organisations, including more than nine years at Deloitte UK.
Lee founded Devol Legal to provide the kind of regulatory advisory support that he saw public bodies consistently struggling to access: technically rigorous, operationally grounded, and capable of surviving scrutiny from members, auditors and the courts.
His practice spans licensing, enforcement, governance, markets regulation and public sector transformation. He is most frequently instructed where matters involve overlapping legal and operational complexity: contested licensing decisions with political dimensions, fragmented regulatory frameworks requiring modernisation, or transformation programmes where governance cannot afford to drift.
- Called to the Bar
- 2005, Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn
- Education
- LLB, University of Liverpool. Bar Vocational Course (BVC), BPP University. MPA, University of Warwick
- Programme & change
- PRINCE2 and MSP qualified
- Executive education
- University of Oxford, LSE and Imperial College London
Representative experience
- Led a city-wide overhaul of markets and street trading regulation for a city council in the South West, consolidating over 30 years of legacy instruments into a single defensible framework
- Designed and implemented a workforce governance compliance framework for Brent LBC across 12 policy areas, achieving zero non-compliance findings at subsequent external audit
- Advised the Home Office on aligning local authority licensing functions with immigration enforcement objectives under the Immigration Act 2016, developing a cross-agency protocol adopted across six pilot authorities and endorsed for national rollout
- Supported multiple metropolitan authorities on contested licensing hearings involving premises, taxi, and special treatment licensing where decisions carried significant political and reputational risk
- Led regulatory transformation programmes at Deloitte UK for local authorities facing budget constraints, delivering efficiency improvements of up to 30% whilst maintaining governance standards
Career in brief
- Devol LegalFounder, advising public bodies on licensing, markets, enforcement, procurement, governance and transformation
- Deloitte UKMore than nine years leading regulatory and transformation work for public sector clients
- Manchester City CouncilResponsibility spanning markets, street trading and major events, including the Christmas Markets
- London Borough of CamdenRegulatory services and street trading, including a new strategy for regulatory services
- General Medical CouncilRegulatory work including the establishment of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service
- KPMG and PwCPublic sector advisory
Resourcing
How engagements are resourced
Devol Legal is a specialist practice rather than a firm with a pyramid beneath it. The person you brief is the person who does the work, and there is no commercial pressure to widen an instruction in order to keep a team busy.
Where a matter needs additional capacity, or a specialism outside the core practice, associates or counsel are brought in. That happens on a named basis, it is discussed with you first, and their contribution is never presented as in-house resource.
Delivery
How the practice works
Devol Legal is remote-first and works with organisations across England and Wales. Advice, workshops, committee support and training are delivered by secure video conference and structured written work. It keeps overheads out of the fee and makes short-notice availability realistic, which matters when a committee date will not move.
Initial discussion
Speak to the person who will do the work
An initial discussion is confidential and carries no obligation.