Elizabeth
Okinda
Solicitor of England and Wales
Practice Areas at a Glance
- 01Public law consultancy and judicial review risk advisory
- 02Safeguarding and Children Act 1989 strategic advice
- 03Care Act 2014 and human rights assessment advisory
- 04Education law, SEND and EHCP advocacy
- 05Age assessment consultancy (Merton compliance and Brief Enquiry methodology)
- 06Tribunal advocacy in forums where solicitors have rights of audience
- 07Bespoke legal training and simulation-based workshops
- 08Commercial contract advisory: reviewing, drafting and negotiating agreements, and advising on contractual disputes short of litigation
Elizabeth Okinda is a solicitor of England and Wales with more than ten years' experience in public law, safeguarding, children's social care, the Care Act 2014, the Equality Act 2010, the Human Rights Act 1998, and the Nationality and Borders Act 2022.
Her practice has been built inside local authority legal services, the place where statutory decisions are actually made, defended and litigated. That perspective shapes how the practice works: matters are approached operationally as well as legally, with full awareness of how decisions are recorded, challenged and audited in real-world public bodies.
Elizabeth has held lead-lawyer responsibility on contested age assessment matters, judicial review defence and pre-action correspondence for one of the largest London local authority unaccompanied asylum-seeking young persons cohorts. She has drafted lifecycle template suites, contested Pre-Action Protocol responses, advisory notes and JR risk assessments.
She has also developed and delivered training programmes for social workers and legal teams on Section 20 of the Children Act 1989, Human Rights Assessments, Merton-compliant age assessment practice, and disability practice.
Alongside this public law practice, Elizabeth also advises on commercial contracts, reviewing, drafting and negotiating agreements, and advising clients through contractual disputes short of litigation. This draws on the same decade of experience negotiating and interpreting contracts within local authority legal services, and is offered as a non-reserved legal service under the SRA's freelance solicitor framework.
CONFLICT & SEPARATION NOTE
Outside her consultancy practice, Elizabeth holds a substantive legal services role with a London local authority. Strict separation is maintained between her employed practice and her consultancy work, and the practice does not accept instructions that would conflict, or appear to conflict, with that role.