The Officers (together with any further persons co-opted in accordance with paragraph 16) are to form the Executive Committee of the Foundation and are, subject to any directions which the Board may give, to have full power to conduct the affairs of the Foundation and act on its behalf and in its name.
The Officers may, from time to time, coopt up to a total of five persons, at least two of whom must be members of the Board, to be members of the Executive Committee; such persons are to be members of the Executive Committee (unless they have previously ceased to hold office) until the meeting of the Board at which the term of office of the Chair comes to an end in accordance with paragraph 13.
A co-opted member of the Executive Committee may attend meetings of the Board but may not vote (unless already a member of the Board).
MEMBERS OF THE LEGAL WALES EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Jonathan Elystan Rees KC has been the Chair of Legal Wales since 2022.
Jonathan is a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge and was called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 2000, taking silk in 2019 and becoming a Bencher of Inner Temple in 2020. Practicing from chambers in Cardiff,London, Chester, and Manchester, Jonathan specialises in serious crime, fraud, professional misconduct and international criminal law.
He has recently appeared before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers sitting in The Hague. Jonathan sits as a Recorder in the Crown Court.
Elisabeth hails from Mountain Ash, in the Cynon Valley, and attended the Comprehensive School there. With the support of her French teacher there, she obtained a place to study Modern and Mediaeval Languages at Somerville College, Oxford - the first in her family to go on to higher education.
Having completed a post-graduate conversion course to Law, Elisabeth practised in commercial and employment law with the firm of Theodore Goddard (now Addleshaw Goddard LLP), in the City of London, and with Osborne Clarke and Lyons Davidson in Bristol.
A desire to work on behalf of people who could not afford private legal fees led Elisabeth to move to Gloucester Law Centre, where she spent five extremely rewarding years as the employment specialist.
Elisabeth’s love of languages then inspired a move to France, to work at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg for a further five years before returning to take up a post with the Welsh Government Legal Service in the early days of devolution. Constitutional and administrative law, including Human Rights and EU law, have been Elisabeth's speciality for the last 20 years of her career, which culminated in her appointment as Chief Legal Adviser to Senedd Cymru (then the National Assembly for Wales) in 2012.
Elisabeth retired in 2019 and now undertakes a range of voluntary work and individual projects, particularly related to broadening access to the legal profession.
- The Executive Committee
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Jonathan Elystan Rees KC - Chair
Elisabeth Velina Jones – Secretary and Access Scheme Co-ordinator
Hannah Menard - Treasurer
Huw Williams - Co-Opted Executive Committee Member
