Liz Morris

Bio

Liz Morris (she/her) is the deputy director of the Center for WorkLife Law, where she leads the Center’s legal team to advance gender and racial justice in the workplace and in education. Liz’s advocacy builds legal rights for pregnant and lactating people, parents, and family caregivers struggling to take care of their loved ones while making ends meet. Liz is a nationally recognized expert in the employment laws intersecting gender, reproductive health, and family care.

Liz partners closely with grassroots advocates, healthcare providers, and public officials to develop policy solutions to racial and gender disparities in economic security, health, and wellbeing. With her colleagues, Liz drafted model legislation that has been introduced around the country to promote the economic security of family caregivers. She has been called to testify on multiple occasions as an expert witness in the California legislature. Government agencies and courts have adopted novel legal theories developed by Liz and the WorkLife Law team expanding rights for working families. Liz also directly counsels workers and students in crisis through WorkLife Law’s free legal helpline, which supports thousands.

Liz’s writing has been featured in The New York Times, L.A. Times, Harvard Business Review, and Slate. She speaks frequently at conferences, has appeared on NPR and television, and is regularly quoted by media ranging from The Washington Post and PBS NewsHour to Working Mother and Elle. Liz also coauthored WorkLife Law’s 2019 report, Exposed: Discrimination Against Breastfeeding Workers, which provided the rallying cry for the 2022 PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act. This law giving lactation rights at work to nursing parents nationwide was based on model legislation drafted by Liz and her colleagues. She is proud of her leadership in the broad coalition that successfully advocated for the bill’s passage.

In the first part of her career, Liz represented working people in class action lawsuits challenging abusive employment practices and unions in the labor movement. Liz co-taught Advanced Employment Law for six years at the University of California Law, SF. She is a graduate of Claremont McKenna College and received her J.D. from Stanford Law School.

Liz’s greatest achievement, challenge, and source of joy has been raising her two young children with her husband.