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Graham Connolly

Practice Areas

  • Constitutional Law, Public Law, and Administrative Law
  • Financial Services Law, Financial Markets Law, and Superannuation/Investment Law
  • Commercial Law, Corporations Law, and Joint Ventures/Resources Law
  • Insurance Law
  • Equity and Real Property
  • Royal Commissions, Inquiries, and Statutory Tribunals
  • Private International Law and Public International Law
  • Admiralty / Transportation

Graham Connolly has a broad commercial and public law practice. He appears regularly as counsel in trials and appeals in both the Federal and New South Wales courts and tribunals, and he has appeared successfully in applications and appeals to the High Court of Australia. Mr Connolly is briefed, particularly, in urgent applications for pre-trial or interlocutory relief, such as injunctions, freezing orders (Mareva orders), and search orders (Anton Piller orders), under both New South Wales and Commonwealth law.

Mr Connolly also provides legal opinions on discrete commercial, corporations, equitable (including wills, estates, and trust matters), insurance, admiralty, and public law questions.

Mr Connolly has advised on and appeared as counsel for the Australian Government and the State of New South Wales in constitutional, public law, and public international law cases.  Mr Connolly has also advised the Australian Government on national security law and public international law matters.

Mr Connolly served as a Counsel Assisting the 2018-2019 Review of the Commonwealth’s Administrative Appeals Tribunal by the Hon. IDF Callinan AC QC.  In 2016, Mr Connolly was the Junior Counsel for the Independent Review of the Liquor Act 2007 (NSW). Mr Connolly also appeared as a counsel during the 2013-2017 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.  Mr Connolly was junior counsel advising the Chief Justice and Registrar of the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea in the matter of the 2012 contempt proceedings against the former Prime Minister and other Ministers.

Mr Connolly has appeared for a wide variety of Australian and international clients, particularly commercial and merchant banks, investment funds, superannuation funds, trustees, insurers, and brokerages. He has also advised financiers, joint venture partners, and high net-worth individuals, on fundraising agreements and security deeds.

Mr Connolly is also briefed in Admiralty, shipping, and private international law matters by leading British and American firms. Mr Connolly has advised successfully on the enforcement of foreign judgments in Australia. Mr Connolly has also advised on projects that involve complex issues posed by common law and civil law systems.

Mr Connolly has advised on canon law and ecclesiastical law matters, particularly in relation to disputes involving churches and church trust properties. Mr Connolly has experience in Islamic finance matters and their resolution. 

Mr Connolly is a lecturer in Australian Constitutional Law at the University of Sydney and he is the Examiner in Constitutional Law for the Legal Profession Admission Board.  He also presents to continuing legal education and professional development seminars on various legal issues and questions.

In 2022, Mr Connolly was appointed to serve part-time as a Senior Member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal of the Commonwealth of Australia.

Mr Connolly is a frequent commentator for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s radio and news television services, as well as a guest on Sky News television, and his writings have been published by the Australian Financial ReviewThe Sydney Morning Herald, The GuardianDaily TelegraphThe AgeThe Spectator and Meanjin.

Mr Connolly is a graduate of the University of Sydney [BA (Hons)] and the University of New South Wales [LLB (Dean’s Merit List)].  Mr Connolly served successively as a Judges Associate/Tipstaff to Justice Austin in the Supreme Court of New South Wales and to Justice Callinan in the High Court of Australia.

Mr Connolly is a graduate of the Royal Australian Naval College and holds the Queen’s Commission, serving in the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Australian Navy. He has served at sea and ashore as a naval intelligence officer, including operational deployments and wartime duties in the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Oman, the Persian Gulf, and in the Middle East, and the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War.