Lady Justice Nicola Davies DBE was called to the Bar in 1976 by Gray’s Inn. She was elected as a Bencher in 2000 and was Treasurer of Gray’s in 2023. Nicola has invested her time to support various aspects of the Inn’s Education programme, and played a vital role representing the interests of students as the Inn’s Master of Students.
Nicola was a member of, and subsequently chaired, the Management Committee. She is currently a Co-Convenor of The Inns of Court Alliance for Women (ICAW). Nicola’s field of practice as a barrister was medical law. She was the first woman from Wales to hold the following appointments namely: QC; High Court judge; Presiding judge of the Circuit in Wales and Lady Justice of Appeal. She was also the first woman from Wales to be appointed a Treasurer of one of the four Inns’ of Court.
“I joined Gray’s Inn because it is regarded as the Welsh Inn. It was the students’ officer of Gray’s, Dorothy Heywood, who gave me my start at the Bar. At the time there was no formal system of applying for a pupillage. Dorothy knew I had no connections within the legal profession. It was she who organized an interview with a Member of Gray’s Inn at 1 Dr Johnson’s Building. As a result, I undertook my first six months of pupillage in those chambers. Without such support my path to a practice at the Bar could have been very different.”
- Extended Bio
Nicola’s chambers were Serjeants Inn Chambers in London where she practised in the area of medical law. This encompassed clinical negligence, crime, regulatory work and inquiries and acted in a number of notable cases including Sidaway v Board of Governors of the Bethlem Hospital, the Cleveland Child Abuse Inquiry, Bristol Heart Surgeons Inquiry at the General Medical Council. She also represented Dr Harold Shipman at his criminal trial and Professor Sir Roy Meadow at his professional disciplinary proceedings.
Nicola took silk in 1992, and was the first Welsh woman to be appointed a QC. Nicola became a Deputy High Court judge in 2003, a High Court judge (Queen’s Bench Division, now King’s Bench Division) in 2010. Between 2014 and 2017 she was Presiding judge of the Circuit in Wales (the first woman appointed to this position). She is the first Welsh woman to be sworn in as a Lady Justice of Appeal on 10 October 2018.
She is an Honorary Fellow of Cardiff University and has been awarded honorary doctorates of Law from three universities, including Swansea University.