Ellen Holloman focuses her practice on representing financial institutions, corporations and individuals in civil litigation, arbitrations and at trial, in related regulatory enforcement proceedings and corporate internal investigations and, where consistent with client goals, mediation and alternative dispute resolution procedures. She has extensive experience in securities litigation, including derivative and class action litigation, in contract and post-acquisition disputes, and in employment-related claims, including for enforcement of non-compete, non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements, and particularly in #MeToo and other C-suite level crisis situations. She also advises in-house counsel and boards of directors on minimizing legal risks in executive disputes concerning disciplinary and termination decisions, and she has extensive experience in conducting highly sensitive internal investigations regarding such matters. Holloman regularly advises companies, boards, special committees and investors in connection with corporate governance matters, including takeover defense and contests for corporate control. She also frequently handles litigation arising from bankruptcy and financial restructuring matters, and has represented secured and unsecured creditors and debtors in Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases and out-of-court restructurings across a wide range of industries, including financial services, energy, shipping, licensing and apparel.
Lawdragon Honors
Holloman’s practice routinely involves matters with complex cross-border intersections, including obtaining large scale overseas discovery under the Hague Convention and other agreements, and conducting investigations in response to inquiries under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. She also has advised clients on Constitutional law matters, particularly First and Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. In addition to her civil litigation and trial practice, Holloman has significant experience with white-collar criminal defense matters, and has represented clients responding to regulatory inquires, requests and enforcement proceedings initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Reserve, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, National Association of Securities Dealers, FINRA, Internal Revenue Service, the Office of the New York State Attorney General, New York Stock Exchange, European Commission, and the UK Serious Frauds Office, among others.
Holloman is active in pro bono engagements and committed to community service. She obtained a full pardon for a Vietnam War-era veteran, who overcame a 30-year period of addiction and homelessness, only to find that a decades-old felony conviction—for “trespassing” while sheltering in an abandoned building in the New England winter—was an obstacle to obtaining gainful employment. Working with the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund, Holloman authored an amicus curiae brief submitted to the Supreme Court on behalf of several elite private research universities in Fisher v. University of Texas. Her work was cited by the Court. She also has been amicus curiae counsel for a citizens tax advocacy group in a challenge to the New York State property tax system, and for the Structured Finance Association in a matter regarding the CFPB’s enforcement action in the National Collegiate Student Loan Trust situation. Holloman represents LGBTQ individuals in asylum proceedings and in securing name and gender marker changes. Working with KIND (Kids In Need of Defense), she represented two children who were separated from their mother at the United States–Mexico border. Most recently, Holloman helped obtain asylum for Afghan nationals who fled to the United States after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021.
