Elisabeth Traugott

Year of Call: 2011

Elisabeth Traugott is a passionate family law advocate who strives to give voice and agency to her clients.

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Calm, tactical, and tenacious, she has a commanding grasp of relevant law and applies it concisely and strategically to a client’s lived experience.

Elisabeth has developed a considerable practice representing victims of domestic abuse. She is passionate about access to justice and maintains a legal aid practice in complex private children law.

Elisabeth has a robust direct access practice and travels throughout England & Wales.

Domestic Abuse

Overview

Elisabeth is particularly skilled at finding-of-fact hearings and regularly tries cases with extremely serious allegations, to include rape, non-fatal strangulation, coercive and controlling behaviour, physical abuse, economic abuse and faith-based abuse.

In her appellate practice, Elisabeth is adept at formulating and drafting grounds of appeal and skeleton arguments that reflect a firm grasp of the development and trajectory of the law on domestic abuse in particular.

 

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Private Law: Children

Overview

In addition to her domestic abuse work, Elisabeth has advocated successfully for and against relocation applications and has experience litigating applications for occupation orders, transfers of tenancies, section 91(14) orders, and cases arising under High Court inherent jurisdiction.

She has a particular interest in cases where victims are portrayed as “alienators”, deemed “intractably hostile” or “obstructive”, and/or are subjected to assessment by unregulated or professional experts.

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Public Law: Children

Overview

Elisabeth represents parents in care proceedings, ensuring that cases are fairly brought and evidence is robustly tested.

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Notable Cases

Overview

  • Father v Mother (Welfare: DARVO) [2026] EWFC 236(B) (Newport, HHJ)
  • Re A (A Minor: Preliminary Issue: Proceeding in the absence of a party) [2025] EWFC 346
  • Re A (A Minor: Proceeding in the absence of a party: Application to set aside) (No. 2) [2025] EWFC 347
  • Re A (A Minor: Domestic Abuse: Fact  Finding) (No. 3) [2025] EWFC 351
  • Re A (A Minor: Domestic Abuse: Welfare) (No 4) [2026] EWFC 152
  • Martin v the Father & Oth [2026] EWFC 151 – Led by Anthony Metzer KC in a case before Moradifar, HHJ (sitting as a High Court Judge) giving rise to a series of procedural and substantive judgments where the underlying allegation was that the mother’s ex-partner organised an attempt on her life.  
  • Re E (A Child) [2025] EWFC 423 (Henke, J) – Led by Anthony Metzer KC in an ongoing complex High Court case before Henke J involving death of a child.
  • Re E (A Child) (Disclosure to Regulator and Naming of a Witness in a Judgment) [2025] EWCA Civ 1563 (King, LJ) – Represented a mother in an appeal sought by a fact witness, the child’s treating psychotherapist, to preserve her anonymity.
  • GI v K [2026] EWHC 480 (Fam) (Lieven, J) – Acted as trial counsel and drafted skeleton argument for appeal. Acted again as trial counsel for the mother in September 2026.
  • Re a Child (No 3: Enforcement, False allegations of abuse and transfer of residence) [2025] EWFC 437(B) (Willsteed, HHJ)
  • TM v TF [2024] EWHC 2786 (Fam) (Cusworth J)
  • Summers & Ors v White & Ors [2024] EWFC 182 (Moradifar, HHJ sitting as a High Court Judge)
  • W v J [2024] EWFC 352 (B)  (HHJ Greenfield) – Acted as trial counsel at first instance and drafted skeleton argument for the successful appeal by Dr Charlotte Proudman challenging the progression of contact where the father was a registered sex offender and serial rapist.
  • A v K (Appeal: Fact-finding: PD12J) (Cobb, J)
  • AA v BB [2024] EWHC 934 (Fam) (Judd J)
  • K v A [2023] EWFC 325 (B) (Talbott, HHJ)
  • A v B (Appeal: Domestic Abuse) [2023] EWHC 1499 (Fam) (Poole J)
  • SR v OR [2022] EWHC 3479 (Cohen J)

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Elisabeth Traugott

Notable Cases & News

Background

Elisabeth started her working life as a journalist for a community newspaper and has throughout her career remained interested in free speech and authorship rights. As an employed barrister, Elisabeth was in-house counsel for a leading UK academic publisher, regularly advising on defamation and copyright infringement issues.

An American lawyer by training, Elisabeth was a law clerk (judicial assistant) to a US federal judge before becoming a litigation associate at a law firm in San Francisco.  She transferred to the Bar in 2012 after the Bar Transfer Course and pupillage. She came to the self-employed bar in 2019.

Elisabeth is admitted to practice in all state and federal courts in California (inactive status), having originally qualified in 2001.

Awards

  • Family Lawyer of the Year – Right to Equality Awards (Shortlisted)

Education

  • MA Cantab, Newnham College, Cambridge (Social and Political Sciences)
  • Juris Doctor, University of California College of the Law, San Franciso
  • Bar Transfer Test

Professional Memberships

  • Family Law Bar Association
  • Advocate
  • Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn

Languages

  • Basic French

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