Eleanor Madden

Eleanor has broad experience in insurance litigation and has acted for Australian and overseas insurers and commercial clients on a range of coverage and litigation matters.

Eleanor's specific experience is in professional indemnity matters (particularly claims against legal practitioners including counsel), directors' claims, and class actions.

Experience

Eleanor’s experience in solicitor's and barrister's negligence claims spans a range of legal practice areas including family law, personal injury (including historical abuse), commercial litigation, mortgages and lending, property and conveyancing, wills and estates, discrimination, and insolvency.

Eleanor also acts for insured directors, accountants, brokers, and other financial professionals in defence of a diverse range of claims.

Eleanor regularly acts for insurers and insured defendants in large scale litigation, as both defence and/or coverage counsel. She has expertise in class actions in both the financial lines and casualty space, as well as in noise nuisance litigation against wind farm owners and/or operators.

Career highlights

Eleanor's experience includes:

• acting for counsel in successful dismissal of a non-party costs application alleging breach of the Harman undertaking
• successfully declassing a class action against a law firm alleging negligent advice to all clients over a 7-year period in relation to their historical abuse claims
• acting for personal injury firms in defence of professional negligence claims alleging lost opportunities to recover larger sums of compensation for historical abuse across a range of time periods
• acting for a Melbourne law firm in the successful defence of a negligence claim concerning a 5-year retainer for commercial litigation for multiple clients
• acting for numerous family law practitioners in relation to negligence claims, applications to set aside Binding Financial Agreements and in response to applications for third party cost orders
• acting for a legal practitioner in the Banksia Bolitho litigation
• acting in a novel discrimination claim arising from the events of a mediation
• acting for a personal injury firm in a successful summary dismissal application by reason of advocate's immunity
• acting for the primary defendant in a directors’ duties matter valued at over $250M, regarding conduct of a family business empire over a 30-year period
• acting for insurers and/or insureds in relation to bushfire class actions and shareholder class actions
• acting in defence of noise nuisance claims against wind farm operators and owners.