Liz Davies joined the Labour Party in 1979 and served as Labour Councillor in the London Borough of Islington between 1990–1998. She was Chair of the Council’s Women’s Committee 1994–1998. She was elected by Labour Party members onto the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee in 1998 and again in 1999, as part of the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance. She re-joined the Labour Party in 2015 and was secretary of Hackney North & Stoke Newington CLP between 2017–2018. She is an active member of Southampton Test CLP. She is a member of Labour Housing Group and the Labour Campaign to End Homelessness. She has been a member of Unite the Union (formerly T&GWU) since 1989.
She is a housing rights barrister, specialising in representing people who are homeless. She is rated as a “star individual” for social housing law in the legal directory Chambers and Partners. She is co-author of the leading legal textbook Housing Allocation and Homelessness law and practice (Luba, Davies, Johnston and Buchanan, 2018, LexisNexis). Comments about her professionally include “She has an infectious passion for social justice and always goes the extra mile for clients.” “She has an encyclopaedic knowledge of homelessness law and is an excellent advocate.” “She is one of the most outstanding, highly regarded and dedicated barristers in the country.”
She is currently part of a team of lawyers representing Grenfell survivors, bereaved & residents in the Grenfell Inquiry. Her reported cases include R (Hoyte) v Southwark LBC [2016] EWHC 1665 (Admin):when a local housing authority is required to accept fresh application for homelessness assistance on the basis of “new facts”; R (Alansi) v Newham LBC [2013] EWCA Civ 3722 (Admin): the issue of legitimate expectation within a local housing authority’s allocation scheme; and Ali v Birmingham City Council, Moran v Manchester City Council [2009] UKHL 36, [2009] 1 WLR 1506, HL: women occupying refuge accommodation are classed as homeless. In the last case, Liz acted pro bono for Women’s Aid. She has been a consultant for Crisis (the homelessness charity), helping to draft the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 and co-author, with Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick, of “homelessness legislation” in Crisis’ Plan to end homelessness: Everybody In: how to end homelessness in Great Britain.
Liz is a Honorary Vice-President of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers. She was Chair of the Society between 2006 and 2014. During that time, the Haldane Society organised the Commission of Inquiry into Legal Aid, leading to the publication of Unequal Before the Law (Justice Gap, 2011), and held an international conference Defending Human Rights Defenders with delegates from Palestine, the Philippines, Turkey, Belarus and Colombia, in 2012. She visited Palestine in 2010 as part of a lawyers’ delegation investigating house demolitions in East Jerusalem and co-authored the report Enforcing Housing Rights: the case of Sheikh Jarrah.
Liz writes for the Morning Star, Legal Action magazine, Socialist Lawyer, Labour Hub, Labour Briefing, Red Pepper and other left or legal publications. She is a member of Liberty, Justice and Amnesty International.
Her professional profile is here. Please note that she cannot respond to queries about legal cases through this website.