Hannah Ryan

Date of admission to the Bar
2022

Background
Hannah accepts briefs in all areas of law. She has a focus on commercial, public and media law.

Her commercial law practice includes contracts, competition, equity, corporations, insurance and regulatory matters. Her public law practice includes constitutional law, administrative law and statutory construction. She also practices in defamation, including appearing for the respondents in the Roberts-Smith v Fairfax Media Publications appeal in the Full Federal Court. She has also appeared in various inquests and inquiries.

Before coming to the Bar, Hannah worked as Associate to the Honourable Justice Gleeson of the Federal Court, Tipstaff to the Honourable Justice Meagher of the NSW Court of Appeal, and a lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre. She also worked as a journalist.

Hannah holds a Master of Laws from Harvard, where she studied on a Fulbright Scholarship and Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship. She graduated from a Bachelor of Laws at the University of Sydney with First Class Honours. She has received numerous academic prizes, including the Dean’s Scholar Prize for First Amendment Law at Harvard. Hannah was awarded the Christopher Gee QC Memorial Prize for Advocacy for the May 2022 Bar Practice Course.

Hannah’s areas of practice include:

• • Administrative & public law
  • Appellate practice
  • Class actions
  • Commercial law
  • Commissions of inquiry & inquests
  • Constitutional law
  • Equity
  • Insurance
  • Media & defamation law
  • Trade practices & competition law

Qualifications

• Master of Laws (Harvard Law School)
• Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours) (University of Sydney)
• Bachelor of Arts (First Class Honours) (University of Sydney)