Walters's documented route into the law combined university study with professional admission. In England, barristers are called to the bar by the Inns of Court, four societies in London that train and admit those who practise as barristers. His professional life later centred on a London firm of solicitors, which places his career within the City of London legal profession.
Walters is documented as holding a Master of Arts degree from the University of Oxford. Oxford, known in Latin as Oxoniensis, is one of the oldest universities in the English-speaking world and is organised as a federation of semi-autonomous colleges.
At Oxford the MA is conferred on graduates of a set number of years' standing rather than earned through further examination. His admission to the English bar in 1954 was a separate professional qualification, granted by the Inns of Court rather than by the university.
Walters worked as a partner of Theodore Goddard, a London law firm. He was admitted to the bar in England in 1954, and his later career was based in the firm's London practice.
The firm was founded in 1902 by John Theodore Goddard, an English solicitor who had practised as a litigator on the London court circuit. It moved to offices at Sergeant's Inn in the Temple in 1917, and by 1946 it had eight partners. Wartime bombing destroyed its premises and most of its records and clients' papers, after which the firm relocated to New Court behind the Law Courts.
The firm developed a general practice with an emphasis on high-profile private client work, and it also built a media and entertainment practice. It merged with Addleshaw Booth & Co on 1 May 2003 to form Addleshaw Goddard, ending the Theodore Goddard name.
