Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyer stunned the court with eight words on day 1 of his appeal. Now, CANDACE SUTTON reveals the astonishing truth about the woman always by his side

If Sydney lawyer Zali Burrows has a ‘type’ when it comes to clients, it’s men who rank among the country’s most notorious – the kind most people avoid, unless they’ve got a taste for negative headlines.

And so this week, when she stood up in court and described her latest client Bruce Lehrmann as ‘probably Australia’s most hated man’, it was not without comparison.

Among Burrows’s prominent clients are politician Mark Latham, terrorist recruiter Hamdi Alqudsi, Brothers 4 Life gang boss Bassam Hamzy, and teenage Australian Islamic State supporter Abu Bakr.

She also represented Egyptian-Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib, and disgraced property developer Salim Mehajer – another man Burrows has described as ‘one of the most disliked persons in Australia’.

Then there was Fatima Elomar, wife of terrorist Mohamed Elomar who was charged herself with aiding terrorism after he skipped Australia to join Islamic State and then posed for a selfie with the severed heads of dead Syrians.

Burrows, who is as glamorous as she is hard-working, stands up before judges for the rights of people whom most of us would go to great lengths to dodge.

And the high-profile solicitor’s approach is quite blunt. 

On Wednesday, she declared to the Federal Court that her client Bruce Lehrmann – who is seeking to appeal a civil finding that he raped Brittany Higgins in Parliament House six years ago – has ‘pretty much become the national joke’.

Her phlegmatic assessment of Lehrmann – who has always maintained nothing sexual happened with Ms Higgins after their night out drinking in Canberra in 2019 – startled observers at the hearing by the Court’s full bench of Justices Michael Wigney, Craig Colvin and Wendy Abraham.

Burrows is a criminal defence lawyer but not an experienced barrister, and she apologised to Their Honours for the fact that Lehrmann could not afford his preferred counsel, Sydney silk Guy Reynolds SC.

She conceded she was not as prepared as she would’ve liked to have been as she began her attempt to overturn last year’s Federal Court finding that – on the balance of probabilities but not beyond reasonable doubt – Lehrmann had raped Ms Higgins.

She said she was ‘just going to try and do the best I can’.  

Her gutsy stand to act alone on Lehrmann’s behalf before a Federal Court full bench follows the collapse last year of his defamation claim against Network Ten and former journalist Lisa Wilkinson.

Lehrmann had sued over a 2021 interview by Wilkinson with Ms Higgins on The Project which did not name him, but he claimed identified him as the alleged rapist.

Justice Michael Lee accepted Ten’s truth defence that the alleged rape had likely occurred, ruling in April last year that Lehrmann’s defamation suit had failed.

In a landmark decision, Justice Lee was satisfied Ms Higgins had been raped by Lehrmann in the office of the one-time Liberal staffers’ then-boss, former Liberal senator Linda Reynolds, in the early hours of March 23, 2019. 

Mr Lehrmann’s appeal attempt ended abruptly on Thursday after the three judges expressed frustration with how Burrows had argued his case.

It has been Zali Burrows’ undoubtedly complicated task to argue that Lehrmann was denied procedural fairness and natural justice, saying her client never had the chance to respond to Lee’s findings about an alleged rape which differed from how Network Ten and Wilkinson had framed the allegation (as a ‘violent rape’) on The Project.

When Burrows characterised Lee’s judgment as one which found a ‘non-violent rape’ had occurred, Justice Colvin said: ‘I’m not sure he found a non-violent rape – and I’m not sure that’s a concept I understand.’

At the two-day hearing, she also had to contend with Ten’s barrister arguing down her case, saying it was an ‘astonishing submission’ that Lehrmann’s evidence might have differed if he’d been questioned about a ‘non-violent rape’. 

The Federal Court will hand down its decision on the appeal at a later date. 

Burrows has argued other contentious cases during her career, and briefed counsel on behalf of several clients held in immigration detention in human rights cases. 

She represented Sulayman Khalid and 14 others who had their passports seized by ASIO, and Wisam Haddad, the manager of a since-closed western Sydney Islamic bookstore criticised for allegedly promoting jihad in Syria and Iraq.

In perhaps the most puzzling chapter of her career, in 2014, she ran as a candidate for the Palmer United Party in the western Sydney seat of Blaxland on a ticket advocating humane treatment of refugees and assisting oppressed Muslims being targeted during the then-Islamic State war.

Here are Zali’s most prominent clients and the cases she has fought for them: 

BRUCE LEHRMANN 

Burrows turned up in Lehrmann’s ongoing legal saga to appeal his defamation trial loss, as well as a theft allegation in Tasmania.

Lehrmann sued Ten and Wilkinson over a February 2021 interview on The Project in which Ms Higgins alleged she had been raped on a couch at Parliament House almost two years earlier.

While Lehrmann was not named, he claimed he was easily identifiable as the one-time colleague Ms Higgins claimed had sexually assaulted her in the office of Senator Linda Reynolds. He continues to maintain his innocence.

In April last year, Justice Michael Lee ruled in the Federal Court that Lehrmann had not been defamed by Ten because Lehrmann had – on the balance of probabilities – raped Ms Higgins.

The civil standard for truth in the Federal Court is not as high as in a criminal court, which requires a person to be found guilty beyond reasonable doubt. 

An earlier ACT prosecution against Lehrmann for alleged rape was thrown out after his criminal trial was aborted due to juror misconduct.

Six months after Justice Lee’s decision, Burrows was arguing on Lehrmann’s behalf in the same court. 

Responding to Ten’s demand that Lehrmann provide $200,000 security to appeal against Justice Lee’s decision, Burrows said her Centrelink-recipient client was ‘pretty much unemployable’ and did not have the funds.

‘The only shot he’d probably ever have in making money is by going on OnlyFans or something silly like that,’ Burrows told the court.

Justice Wendy Adams ultimately found Lehrmann did not have to put up the $200,000, but he still faces picking up $2million of Ten’s legal costs for the original trial if he loses his appeal when the Federal Court full bench delivers its decision.

Burrows has also represented Lehrmann at Hobart Magistrates Court on a charge that he stole a car in November 2024.

Lehrmann pleaded not guilty to the charge of motor vehicle stealing in June 2025, and the case was adjourned to a later date, with a potential three-day hearing scheduled.

Last month Burrows and Lehrmann enjoyed a relaxed drink at Mary Mary in Hobart’s fashionable Salamanca Place, before heading next door to the Italian restaurant Peppina.

Lehrmann and Burrows shared a bottle of red with their meal before leaving the Parliament Square precinct so that she could catch a flight back to Sydney.

She had flown down to the Tasmanian capital to seek a restraining order for him  against a Daily Mail reporter, after he unsuccessfully demanded $50,000 in damages for a story he claimed portrayed him in a bad light.

Lehrmann sought the interim order against journalist Karleigh Smith who had written the piece about his new life with a 45-year-old mother-of-two in a Tasmanian hamlet.

Daily Mail did not take down the story, did not pay Lehrmann a cent and successfully challenged the interim order. Magistrate Jackie Hartnett set the matter down for a November 13 hearing.

MARK LATHAM

Burrows’ other client Mark Latham, the former NSW One Nation leader, has been in the news lately for his stoush with ex-partner Nathalie Matthews.

Latham’s notoriety isn’t on the same level as other men Burrows has represented, with his controversies instead stemming from civil cases brought against him as well as his questionable past conduct while a politician.

In his latest scandal, Matthews has taken out an AVO against Latham, claiming he abused her and forced her into degrading sex acts. He denies the allegations.

She is now also seeking an interim apprehended domestic violence order against him to stop him from talking about her online.

In another twist to the tale, Burrows has sought on Latham’s behalf to serve subpoenas on Matthews’ communications with WiseTech founder Richard White.

Both White and Matthews are fighting the subpoenas. 

Burrows is also representing Latham in his appeal against a defamation judgment in favour of gay independent Sydney MP Alex Greenwich over a homophobic tweet.

Last year, Latham was ordered to pay $140,000 in damages to Greenwich.

In a case before the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal, Greenwich alleges four public statements by Latham constituted unlawful homosexual vilification and sexual harassment in the workplace.

He claimed they breached the state’s Anti-Discrimination Act and were part of ‘ongoing belittling’ by Latham.

Burrows suggested to the tribunal that Greenwich had delivered a ‘prepared speech’ in his answers and asked for examples of her clients’ alleged attacks.

SALIM MEHAJER

In a 2020 defamation claim against a newspaper over an article about her and her client Salim Mehajer, Burrows described the former deputy mayor of Auburn as ‘arguably one of the most disliked persons in Australia’.

She said the disgraced property developer ‘evokes a negative reaction from both the public at large and commentators’.

Mehajer, whom Burrows had represented for years, would go on to forge Burrows’ signature on a legal document – yet she would return to represent him. 

She famously walked alongside him as he was freed from Cooma Correctional Centre in 2019 after serving an 11-month jail sentence for electoral fraud.

But Salim would return to prison in November 2020, when he was jailed for lying to a court, and serve back-to-back sentences for a raft of other offences, including domestic violence against an ex-partner, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

The bankrupt ex-politician walked free from jail again last month when he exited a western Sydney prison on July 18 following a five-year stint behind bars.   

After getting his teeth whitened and his prison man bun cut off, Mehajer appeared in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal on August 8 to announce that Burrows would be representing him.

She will argue against his domestic violence convictions and sentence, which he claims was ‘defective’ and unfair.

In July 2023, while in custody, Mehajer was convicted of forging Burrows’ signature on two separate documents, as well as that of his sister, Zenha Osman.

The forged documents were related to a statutory declaration from his sister, but it appears now all is forgiven.

BASSAM HAMZY

In 2021, lawyers for incarcerated gangster and murderer Bassam Hamzy made an audacious bid to bring the notorious Brothers 4 Life founder to Sydney from his prison cell in Goulburn Supermax.

Burrows was in the team attempting to block NSW Police from using letters Hamzy had sent from jail against him. 

Police claimed the letters supported allegations he was running a drug ring from behind bars.

Hamzy, serving a 40-year sentence for a range of crimes, claimed those files should remain confidential and not used against him under client legal privilege laws. 

A court heard the gang leader needed to appear in person and also meet with his legal team, after his solicitor Burrows had struggled to obtain proper instructions from Hamzy.

This was due to his maximum-security conditions making it too difficult to meet and speak from Supermax, where he was classified an Extreme High Risk Security inmate.

NSW Supreme Court Justice Richard Button was not convinced and the bid failed.

Burrows later told a true crime podcast that, in her dealings with Hamzy, she had learned that he may hold the key to finding serial killer Ivan Milat’s missing victims.

Milat, who died in 2019, had spent many years incarcerated in Supermax in the same unit of the secure jail as Hamzy, who became a confidante of the serial killer while they both shared the same prison classification.

Hamzy claimed Milat had revealed to him the location of a secret burial site for victims never included among the seven backpacker murders for which he was convicted. 

‘If only they were nice to him, they would get some secrets out of him because I know that Ivan Milat confided in him. And I’m pretty sure Hamzy knows where the missing bodies are buried,’ she said in 2022. 

HAMDI ALQUDSI

In 2014, Sydney father Hamdi Alqudsi was ordered to stand trial for recruiting Australians to fight with terrorists in Syria.

Police alleged Alqudsi assisted with the travel arrangements of seven young men who left Australia to fight with Jabhat al Nusra and Al Qaeda affiliates.

They said he acted as a go-between for the men and senior IS figure Mohammad Ali Baryalei.

Zali Burrows had argued that the charges against her client were defective and unfair, and that some of Alqudsi’s actions may have been completely innocuous.

But prosecutors contended that telephone intercept recordings of conversations between Alqudsi and some of the young men were powerful evidence. 

In July 2016, he was convicted and subsequently sentenced to a maximum of eight years’ imprisonment. But while in jail, he was further charged with knowingly directing the activities of a terrorist organisation known as ‘the Shura’.

He was convicted at trial and, in 2023, was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment. 

FATIMA ELOMAR 

On May 3, 2014, a 29-year-old mother-of-four was arrested at Sydney Airport as she was boarding a flight to Malaysia with her children, the youngest aged just five weeks.

Her name was Fatima Elomar and in her luggage was a treasure trove of items that resembled a terrorist’s kit bag: GPS watches, solar-powered torches, chargers, camouflage clothing and insect repellent, boots, cables, $10,000 cash and her husband’s birth certificate.

The fact that her husband Mohamed Elomar was already in Syria with another suspected Islamic State convert, Khaled Sharrouf, was high up on the radar of the Australian authorities.

Mohamed Elomar had posted pictures on social media of himself holding the severed heads of Syrian soldiers. 

Police charged Fatima with preparing for incursions into a foreign state with the intention of engaging in hostile activities.

Burrows described her client as a ‘devoted mother’ of her four children and said the charges were ‘serious and overzealous’.

Elomar said her arrest ‘highlighted the pitfalls for travellers packing camouflage gear as a fashion item’.

‘Let it be a travel warning to leave the camouflage pants at home and best check with Smart Traveller as to what the acceptable fashion is,’ Elomar added.

In court, Elomar was forced to bare her face to the magistrate at several hearings, but out on the street, she covered up with a full-faced niqab, with only a tiny slit around her eyes, while also holding a sheet of cloth to further cloak her identity.

Always willing to go the extra mile for her clients, on the street Burrows helped shield Elomar and her children, holding blankets across their faces to preserve their identity from the media.

In November 2015, the Daily Mail publicly unmasked Elomar, photographing her shopping – without her niqab – at Westfield, buying clothes in Urban Equipment and grabbing coffee at McDonalds.

Neighbours in western Sydney were unaware of her criminal charges.

In November 2015, she pleaded guilty to providing support for Islamic State and was given a suspended sentence of two years and three months and a good behaviour bond.

While preparing to join Mohamed Elomar in the Middle East, Fatima had sent him a series of excited texts via the messaging app Tango.

They included, ‘Row row row your boat, Sneak up in the stream, Lock n load in Mujadid Mode, Islamic State Shaheeds’ and ‘Inshallah I’m going to be there soon!’ 

Mohamed Elomar and Khaled Sharrouf were both killed fighting in Syria, along with Sharrouf’s two elder sons, who had trained in IS fighting camps.

Sharrouf’s Australian wife Tara Nettleton died from complications after an operation for appendicitis in a local hospital.

Fatima Elomar’s arrest in Australia likely saved her life.