Professor Holness is a children’s and disability rights scholar, and formerly litigated with a legal NGO (law clinic) on social justice matters. She read for a Doctorate of Law with the University of Pretoria on access to justice for mothers with intellectual disabilities under the supervision of Prof Charles Ngwena. She teaches Constitutional Law, Gender and the Law and Access to Justice in the LLB programme; and in the LLM and Mphil programme on Child Care and Protection, an interdisciplinary programme; as well as the LLM Constitutional Litigation programme.