Ursula Holmes is an experienced trial attorney who focuses her practice on general business litigation, health care litigation including medical malpractice defense, and labor and employment. Ms. Holmes' clients include publicly-held restaurant chains, governmental entities, nonprofit organizations, long term care facilities, hospitals, physicians and dentists. She has also represented clients in complex constitutional tort cases under 42 USC § 1983. Ms. Holmes has extensive experience in conducting investigations of discrimination under Title II and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and she has also created and facilitated training in diversity and inclusion, Title VII and Title II. She is of counsel in the Firm's Memphis office and is a member of the Firm's Diversity Committee.
Prior to joining Baker Donelson, Ms. Holmes spent more than five years as in-house counsel for a publicly held restaurant chain, where she managed litigation, handled contract administration, served as part of the team overseeing DOJ consent decree compliance and handled the company's intellectual property portfolio. Ms. Holmes' experience as in-house counsel provides her with a unique perspective that enables her to effectively identify and meet the business and legal needs of her clients.
A native of the Mississippi Delta, Ms. Holmes is founder of Fertile Ground Foundation, a nonprofit organization created in 2009 to help revitalize the rural communities of the Mississippi Delta through community development, business development, and health and fitness initiatives.
- Editor – Diversity Matters: Valuing Race and Gender, Baker Donelson's Diversity Committee and Women's Initiative Newsletter
- Co-author – "Federal Court of Appeals Rules That a Trucking Company May Terminate and Employee Who Poses a Safety Risk," Baker Donelson Transportation Newsletter (November 2007)
- Facilitator – Religion in the Workplace
- Firm Instructor – Diversity and Inclusion
- Member – American, Tennessee and Memphis Bar Associations
- Member – National Bar Association , Ben F. Jones Chapter
- Member – Women's Foodservice Forum
- Fellow – The Leadership Academy (September 2010 class)
- Firm Representative – Memphis Minority Business Council
- Past Member – Harry Phillips American Inns of Court
- Tennessee, 1996
- U.S. District Court of Tennessee, Middle District
- U.S. District Court of Tennessee, Western District
- Vanderbilt University School of Law, J.D., 1996
- Spelman College, B.A. cum laude, 1993