New Orleans boutique Fishman Haygood represents both plaintiffs and defendants in complex high-stakes cases involving class action, tax, securities, and environmental litigation. Fishman’s business department deals in commercial and government clients and spans a range of areas including corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, real estate, private equity, and public finance.
Distinguished as one of Benchmark’s Top 250 women in litigation,
Lori Mince has developed a unique mix of practices in the areas of media law, commercial litigation, and tax litigation. Mince is the lead partner representing the Louisiana Department of Revenue in a lawsuit focusing on several transfer pricing cases against General Mills, W.W. Grainger, Monsanto Company, Rent-A-Center, and Home Depot. The Department of Revenue seeks to enforce its right to adjust taxable income among two or more related parties to reflect the income earned by each party in the state of Louisiana. These cases are ongoing.
James Swanson represents clients in cases involving municipal finance, derivatives, Ponzi schemes, corporate tax, and environmental damage. He is acclaimed for his securities practice and has obtained multimillion-dollar judgments for his clients in trials and arbitrations. Swanson is one of the lead attorneys that filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of customers of FTX cryptocurrency derivatives exchange. The lawsuit seeks to recover damages from the investment losses against the banks and venture capital firms that allegedly aided and abetted Sam Bankman-Fried and his company in a scheme to defraud customers out of billions of dollars and crypto assets.
Securities litigator Benjamin Reichard continues to make waves as a burgeoning investor-fraud authority. Reichard is working alongside Swanson on behalf of FTX customers. His practice includes class action, environmental litigation, and international arbitration. He is the lead partner representing a contractor in a dispute over unpaid invoices for construction work performed in Libya. The contractor won a settlement in the Libyan court system but was never paid. Later, the contractor won in the International Criminal Court (ICC) and now the firm is litigating across multiple jurisdictions worldwide to enforce the ICC award.
Over the course of 40 years, Brent Barriere has cemented his status as a preeminent commercial and bankruptcy force in Louisiana’s litigation landscape. He has built a specialized practice representing trustees and receivers. He is currently the Receiver’s counsel to the estates of Arthur Lamar Adams and Madison Timber Properties. The two parties were charged with operating a $100 million Ponzi scheme, purportedly one of the largest in Mississippi history.
Jason Burge is known for his prowess helping victims of financial misconduct. Leveraging his economics background, he represents clients in single plaintiff and class actions against financial institutions. Currently, Barriere and Burge are prosecuting securities fraud claims against the underwriter Raymond James, amounting to more than $30 million of public finance municipal bonds. The bonds were used to construct a wood-pellet manufacturing facility that went into bankruptcy. The case is still pending.
Lance McCardle has developed a practice encompassing expertise in securities, environmental, oil and gas, and general commercial litigation. He is on the team that filed a class action against the operators of three pipelines that stretch along the entire coast of Louisiana. The lawsuit alleges that the pipeline companies caused damage to the land on which they were built and seeks an injunction requiring the pipeline companies to restore the land that has been lost. Class certification is upcoming.
