Death: HCLC mourns the loss of ‘tenacious’ housing lawyer Nathaniel (Nat) Mathews – Nathaniel (Nat) Mathews, a law center solicitor who was characterized as a “real hero of social housing” who died after a brief illness, has received a torrent of tributes. This morning, the Hackney Community Law Centre broke the tragic news.
According to lawgazette.co.uk, ‘We will miss Nat so much, he was such a shining star of our team – I have worked with him for more than 25 years – but his legacy lives on with the literally hundreds of lawyers who have worked with him and been trained and supervised by him, with a different view of what justice should be to some in the legal profession, and that all people should have access to justice,’ said Ian Rathbone, chair of the law center.
He was dedicated to the poor and disadvantaged, demonstrating that there are other, friendlier, more accessible methods to provide legal services.’ Nathaniel joined Hackney Community Law Centre (HCLC) in 1994 as a housing specialist.
‘As a feisty housing lawyer working in Hackney and beyond, Nat battled for and spoke out on behalf of the many homeless and most vulnerable individuals and families who relied on the law center,’ according to the HCLC. After successfully contending in the Court of Appeal that a pause on all housing possession procedures due to Covid-19 included appeals, Nathaniel was featured in the Gazette’s ‘Lawyer in the News’ column in June 2020.
