H.S. "Tad" Bartlett III

Partner Tad Bartlett heads up Fishman Haygood’s Appellate Group and practices more broadly in the firm’s Litigation Section. Tad is an Appellate Practice Specialist, certified by the Louisiana Board of Legal Specialization, and serves as a member of the LBLS Appellate Practice Advisory Commission.

Tad first practiced under the Louisiana student practice rule in 1999 as a member of the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic before graduating magna cum laude and Order of the Coif from Tulane Law School in 2000. While at Tulane, Tad served for a year as a research assistant to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (U.S. Supreme Court) and Judge James L. Dennis (U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit) for a class on comparative human rights law. After graduating, he served as a judicial clerk for Judge Dennis, then developed his litigation and appellate practice at several area law firms.

Tad was an integral part of a multi-firm team that developed the coastal litigation practice regarding land-loss on behalf of both landowners and governmental entities. In addition, Tad has been deeply involved in numerous complex commercial cases, from preferential rights disputes to bet-the-company litigation, as well as construction litigation.

Since 2019, Tad has served on Tulane Law School’s faculty as an adjunct professor, teaching an advanced seminar on Coastal Law Litigation & Policy each spring. He currently serves as an advisory board member of the Tulane Institute of Water Resources Law and Policy.

Tad also runs the Take the Fifth blog, which digests all opinions released by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, summarizes all opinions designated for publication, and tracks statistics on opinion releases from the Circuit.

• Represents Bradish Johnson Co., Limited in a class action against the operators of three pipelines and pipeline canals that stretch along the entire coast of Louisiana from St. Bernard Parish to St. Mary Parish. The lawsuit alleges that the pipeline companies failed to abide by their legal obligations to prevent damage to the land across which their pipelines and pipeline canals traverse, causing massive destruction and land loss. The lawsuit seeks a mandatory injunction against the pipeline companies requiring them to construct projects that will restore the land that has been lost as a result of the breach defendants’ legal obligations. The case is the biggest class action ever filed attempting to hold the pipeline industry responsible for the devastation they have caused to Louisiana’s coastline. (Bradish Johnson Co., Ltd. v. Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, LLC and Kinetica Energy Express, LLC, No. 2023-10295 (CDC, Orleans Parish, LA).)
  
  
• Represents a class of plaintiffs in Louisiana whose property has been damaged by lead-covered telephone cables and associated lead equipment owned, operated, and/or abandoned by Defendants. The case concerns the severe environmental damage to soil and groundwater in areas along Bayou Teche in Louisiana caused by the Defendants’ installation and subsequent abandonment of lead-wrapped telecommunication cables on and under Plaintiffs’ and Class Members’ properties, and the Defendants’ ongoing, decades-long failure to remediate the damage or remove cables no longer in use. The firm filed a class action in early November 2023 seeking injunctive relief for a comprehensive assessment and remediation of the environmental damage to all properties, as well as class-wide compensatory damages. (See Gary Blum, et al. v. AT&T Corp, et al., Case No. 6:23-cv-1748)
  
  
• Represents the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, which oversees the Pointe aux Chenes Wildlife Management Area (WMA). The WMA is made up of nearly 34,000 acres of coastal wetlands in Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes and is entrusted to the LDWF. The land provides habitats for many species of fish and wildlife, and it offers valuable ecological functions, namely storm protection and public recreation. The LDWF recently filed a petition for injunctive relief against several pipeline companies for failing to properly maintain the land entrusted to them for their use as pipeline canals. (Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, et al. v. Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co., LLC, et al. (17th JDC 2022))
  
  
• Represented a professional sports league and its officials in defense against multiple class action lawsuits brought by sports fans and ticketholders arising from officiating of a game, including gaining a full reversal in favor of his clients in emergency certiorari practice before the Louisiana Supreme Court. (Lemon v. National Football League, et al. (La. 2019).
  
  
• Represented Henican Terrebonne Property, LLC against Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, LLC and Gulf South Pipeline Company, LLC, which dredged pipeline canals on the plaintiff’s property and failed to perform proper maintenance of the canals and pipelines. The contracts required that the pipeline canals cannot exceed 40 feet in width, and—because the canals far exceeded these stated widths—resulted in a breach of the contracts. The expansion of the canals caused significant damage and erosion on the property, resulting in hundreds of acres of marsh loss on the property. The case was settled for confidential amounts in May 2024.

• Appellate
• Class action
• Environmental
• Plaintiff

• Consumer goods and services
• Fisheries and aquaculture
• Government and public policy
• Insurance
• Natural resources
• Oil and gas

• J.D., magna cum laude, - Tulane Law School - 2000
• M.F.A. - University of New Orleans - 2015
• B.A., magna cum laude, - Spring Hill College - 1994

• New Orleans Bar Association    
• Louisiana State Bar Association

• Louisiana - 2000