Ellen V. Holloman

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 proceedings.  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.  Ellen regularly advises companies, boards, special committees and investors in connection with corporate governance matters in all types of situations, including risk management, 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.

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Many of Ellen’s institutional clients are domiciled or have significant operations outside of the United States and her practice routinely involves situations with complex cross-border intersections, including obtaining large scale overseas discovery under the Hague Convention and other agreements.  She also has advised clients on Constitutional law matters, particularly First and Eighth Amendment jurisprudence.  In addition to her civil litigation and trial practice, Ellen 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.

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Ellen 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, Ellen 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. Ellen 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, Ellen helped obtain asylum for Afghan nationals who fled to the United States after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021, and serves as amicus curiae counsel for a group of legal scholars supporting Constitutional challenges to ICE courthouse arrests.

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Ellen serves on the Board of Trustees for the Center for Employment Opportunities, a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting men and women with criminal convictions with finding employment.  She is a member of the Nomination & Governance and Audit Committees, and sits on the Board’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Steering Committee.  She also serves on the Board of Trustees for the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, where she is a member of the Development and Nomination & Governance Committees, and she is a Director for the Fund for Modern Courts, a non-profit and non-partisan organization dedicated to ensuring that New York State Courts are just and equitable for all.  She is a soror of Alpha Kappa Alpha, a past member of the New York City Bar Association’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Mergers, Acquisitions and Corporate Control Contests Committees, a member of the Federal Bar Council, National Bar Association, the Women’s White Collar Defense Association, the New York Council of Defense Lawyers, National Association of Women Lawyers, and a lifetime member of the Metropolitan Black Bar Association.

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Ellen is a frequent speaker and panelist on litigation, compliance, corporate governance, and diversity, equity and inclusion topics.  She contributed the inaugural chapter on “Diversity and Inclusion” to the fifth edition of Commercial Litigation in New York State Courts, the preeminent treatise on the subject.  She also is a principal author of the “Constitutional Framework and Evolving Issues” chapter of Defending Federal Criminal Cases: Attacking the Government’s Proof, the leading treatise of its kind.  She is a Lexis Practice Advisor author and has published articles with the National Law Review, M&A Lawyer, Law360 and the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, among others.  She serves on the Editorial Board Steering Committee of the Commercial Law Journal of the American Bar Association, and is a past co-chair of the Structured Finance Association’s CFPB v. NCSLT Task Force Committee.

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Ellen is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a global honorary society of lawyers, judges, law faculty and legal scholars who have demonstrated outstanding leadership in the profession and service to society.  The New York City Bar Association honored Ellen with the Thurgood Marshall Award in recognition of her representation of post-conviction inmates who are under sentence of capital punishment, and she has received the Award for Conspicuous Service from the New York County Lawyers Association.  She also has been recognized for “Thought Leadership” as part of ALM Corporate Counsel’s annual “Women, Influence & Power in Law” awards.   Ellen led a team of dozens of lawyers that received the “Distinguished Honors” award for client services from Diageo North America, in connection with her representation of the company in multiple litigation and regulatory matters. Diageo again awarded Kaplan Martin the “Local Hero” client service award in connection with multiple representations of the company in nationwide class action lawsuits and other disputes. Most recently, Ellen was  one of twelve 2026 Honorees on the National Association for Women Lawyers’ Impact List, a distinction given to lawyers who have contributed to NAWL’s mission of advancing women in the profession and advocating for women under in the law.

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Ellen is a Lawdragon Legend, Class of 2026. She has been recognized by Lawdragon in multiple categories, including as one of the 500 Leading Lawyers in America, 500 Leading Litigators in America, 500 Leading Global Litigators, 500 Leading Global Plaintiff Lawyers,  and 500 Leading Global Bankruptcy and Restructuring Lawyers. In 2025, Benchmark Litigation named her one of the Top 250 Women in Litigation and she was again recommended by the Legal 500 in Securities Litigation Defense. She has been recognized in Lawyers of Color’s Wonderful Women list, named one of Savoy Magazine’s 2024 Most Influential Lawyers, and listed as one of New York’s Top 100 lawyers by National Black Lawyers. Ellen has been named a five-time Notable Woman in Law, a Notable Diverse Leader in Law, a Notable Litigator and Trial Attorney, and a two-time Notable Black Leader and Executive by Crain’s New York,  selected by Super Lawyers as a top-rated securities litigation attorney in New York, and listed in the Super Lawyers NY Metro Women’s Edition.

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Prior to joining Kaplan Martin, Ellen was a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, and an associate in the New York and London offices of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP.