Michael S. Blackwell

Hirschel Abbott concentrates his practice in estate planning, closely held businesses and entity selection, fiduciary litigation, charitable planning, and tax-exempt organizations. He currently serves as a co-chair of the firm’s Tax, Trusts and Estates Practice Group. As a Board-Certified Tax Law Specialist and a Certified Public Accountant, Hirschel counsels businesses and other high net worth individuals and families on matters related to property, tax, and estate planning. He also ad...

Concentrating primarily in the areas of medical malpractice and legal malpractice defense, Karen P. Holland has over twenty years of experience representing a cross-section of healthcare professionals, including individual health care providers, hospitals, long term care facilities, clinics, same day surgery centers, and their various insurers .Ms. Holland’s defense methods include a thorough, determined and vigorous defense of the medical professional throughout the pre-litigation medi...

Kevin McGlone is a native of Metairie, Louisiana. He is a 1999 cum laude graduate of the University of Notre Dame, where he received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in finance. He then attended Loyola University College of Law in New Orleans and graduated magna cum laude with a Juris Doctor in 2002. While at Loyola, Mr. McGlone served as Editor-in-Chief of the Loyola Law Review. Following graduation from law school, Mr. McGlone served as law clerk from 2002-2003 to the Honorable ...

Chris Friend is a partner in the Litigation Practice group. He represents oil and gas and chemical companies in commercial and class action disputes, regulatory investigations, and law-enforcement actions. Chris represents upstream and midstream oil and gas companies, chemical companies, service providers, and contractors across the country in all aspects of regulation and litigation, including property damage, accidents, and insurance claims, toxic tort and bodily injury claims, environmenta...

Kelly Theard is a construction lawyer representing general contractors, subcontractors, architects, engineers, program managers and material suppliers in a variety of construction related litigation including construction defect, design and professional liability, and third-party injury claims. She also assists her clients in contract negotiations and pre-claim disputes. Ms. Theard currently serves as the firm's Managing Partner as well as Head of the Construction Practice Group. While Ms. Th...

Justin Lemaire concentrates his practice on business litigation. He assists clients with a wide variety of business issues, including state and local tax disputes, products liability litigation, oil and gas litigation, public bid law cases and government procurement cases. His experience ranges from defending independent oil and gas companies in legacy oilfield site lawsuits to representing a large chemical corporation in a multimillion dollar arbitration over a chemical distribution agreemen...

Etienne Balart is a partner in the Maritime and Litigation practice groups, in the Construction Industry Team, and co-leads the firm's Latin America working group. He provides transactional and litigation counsel to clients in the energy and maritime industries. Etienne helps clients identify and quantify financial, compliance, and other risks associated with disputes and litigated matters, negotiate, and, where necessary, bring to trial commercial and other disputes. Relying upon this deep e...

Benjamin P. Bucy has significant experience in complex litigation and has focused his practice on representing whistleblowers in qui tam cases under federal and state False Claims Acts. Ben has been involved in all phases of False Claims Act (FCA) cases, including case development, drafting FCA complaints, assisting the Government in sealed FCA investigations, litigating FCA cases and has secured millions of dollars in False Claims Act settlements. Most of Ben’s FCA experience has invol...

Mike Magner is a partner in the Litigation Practice Group. An acclaimed former federal prosecutor, he delivers practical advice and offers a steady hand to clients facing a wide range of commercial disputes, internal investigations, and white collar criminal matters. Mike is a preeminent, highly respected trial attorney and Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Drawing on his more than 40 years of experience handling complex criminal and civil matters — including nearly 50 ju...

Adrian D’Arcy’s primary practice areas include commercial litigation, construction litigation which he litigates in federal and state courts, and in arbitrations. Adrian is a proponent of resolving matters early in mediation and through alternative dispute resolution if possible so clients can focus on their companies and not on litigation. Additionally, Adrian crafts and reviews construction contracts so that clients are protected on the front end of projects. Adrian has over 17 ...