Elisa Holmes SC

Date of admission to the Bar
1999

Date of appointment as Senior Counsel
2024

Areas of practice

• Commercial & equity
• Corporations
• Banking
• Insolvency & administration
• Class actions
• Insurance
• Trade Practices & competition
• Regulation
• Sport

Signed the Bar Roll in South Australia in 1999.
Called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2003.
Admitted as a barrister in New South Wales in 2012.
Admitted in New Zealand in 2019.

Elisa is an experienced trial and appellate advocate, and has practiced as a
barrister for 18 years, including eight years in London, before returning to the Bar
in Sydney in 2012.

Elisa has a busy commercial and equity practice, with particular expertise in
equity, class actions, insolvency, corporations, banking, company, insurance,
trade practices, professional negligence and contract.

She appears regularly in the Supreme Court and the Federal Court in significant
litigation.

Her most recent cases include a number of class actions for defendant companies
and individuals, seven class actions concerning defective airbags (including several
appellate court appearances) and a major cross-border insolvency involving the
Federal Court of Australia and the High Court of New Zealand sitting together.

Elisa is also a leading sports lawyer. She is an inaugural tribunal member of the
National Sports Tribunal, and sits on sporting tribunals, panels and judiciaries, as
well as appearing as an advocate for players, sporting associations and clubs,
including in the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The majority of Elisa’s practice in the UK was in the High Court and the Court of
Appeal, where she appeared in a large number of significant commercial, equity
and regulatory cases, including many of the most significant competition law
cases.

Background
Barrister, South Australia, 1999-2001
University of Oxford 2001-2003
Visiting Research Fellow, University of Columbia, NYC, 2004
Barrister, England & Wales, 2005 – 2015
Barrister, New South Wales 2012 –

Qualifications
Master of Philosophy (Distinction) (University of Oxford) 2003
Bachelor of Civil Laws (Distinction) (University of Oxford) 2002
Bachelor of Laws (Hons) (First) (University of Adelaide) 1997 (University Medalist)
Bachelor of Arts (University of South Australia) 1994