Education
Victoria Staveley-Taylor studied at the University of St. Andrews, where she took a Master of Arts with Honours. Founded in 1413 when Avignon Pope Benedict XIII issued papal bulls, St Andrews is Scotland's oldest university and, after Oxford and Cambridge, the third-oldest in the English-speaking world.
The university developed through a series of colleges, among them St Salvator's, founded in 1450, and St Leonard's, founded in 1512. Its early growth reflected the ambition of Scottish church leaders to keep higher learning within the country rather than sending students to England or the Continent.
In 1979 she was admitted to the bar in England, a professional qualification that allowed her to practise law in that jurisdiction.
Career
Victoria Staveley-Taylor's documented professional position was partner at Theodore Goddard, a London law firm. The firm was founded in 1902 by John Theodore Goddard, a solicitor who began practice in offices at Clement's Inn, close to the Law Courts, and built a reputation as a litigator on the London court circuit.
The firm grew through amalgamations with other City of London practices and developed a balanced general practice with an emphasis on high-profile private client work. By the late 1980s it had more than forty partners and over 300 staff, and a strong media and entertainment law practice became one of its notable areas. In 1990 it moved to 150 Aldersgate Street.
The firm's premises were destroyed by a German bomb in 1941, which also destroyed most of its records, and it relocated to New Court behind the Law Courts. In 2003 Theodore Goddard merged with the northern practice Addleshaw Booth & Co to become Addleshaw Goddard, with offices in Leeds and Manchester as well as London.
