Laurie A. Dearman
Special Counsel
ldearman@fishmanhaygood.com 
504.556.5511 
504.387.6798 Practice Focus
Litigation Practice, Appellate Group, Class Actions/Mass Actions/MDLs, Construction, EmploymentLaurie Dearman is special counsel in our firm’s Litigation Section. Her practice mainly focuses on complex matters in federal and state court, as well as in arbitration. Laurie has argued motions and tried cases in courts across Louisiana, North Carolina, and Texas, and she is licensed in all three states.
Over the course of her legal career, Laurie has represented insurers, for-profit businesses, and non-profits in commercial and tort litigation, including maritime, energy, labor and employment, antitrust, toxic torts, intellectual property, transportation, and banking matters. Her past clients include Huntington Ingalls, Chesapeake Energy, Philip Morris, Miller Brewing Company, and Texas Brine Company.
Prior to private practice, Laurie clerked for the Honorable Morey L. Sear on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Later in her career, she clerked for the Honorable P. Trevor Sharp, Magistrate Judge, on the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.
Laurie has been involved in numerous community and professional organizations, including the American Heart Association, the Young Leadership Council, Save Our Cemeteries, and the New Orleans Film Society. She is also active in the American Bar Association, Federal Bar Association, and Louisiana State Bar Association, and she is a member of the New Orleans Bar Association and the Association for Women Attorneys – New Orleans. Her pro bono activities include participating in the Tulane Alumni Association’s free legal clinic for veterans, and she has also served as a Pro Bono Project Justice for All Ball committee member.
In addition, Laurie has authored several scholarly articles and has been a faculty member on Continuing Legal Education panels for both the legal profession and the judiciary. She taught a Federal Rules of Civil Procedure course at Tulane University Law School with Chief Judge Sear between 1996 and 2000.
Laurie received her law degree magna cum laude from Tulane, where she served as Senior Articles Editor of the Tulane Law Review and graduated Order of the Coif. She also received the Rufus C. Harris award for her Comment “Louisiana’s New Law on Capacity to Make and Receive Donations: Unduly Influenced by the Common Law?” While at Tulane, Laurie worked for legendary civilian scholar Prof. A.N. Yiannopoulos. In that role, she assisted Prof. Yiannopoulos in drafting updates for the Louisiana Civil Law Treatise, editing the Louisiana Civil Code, and drafting the Civil Code for the Republic of Estonia.
She has been Martindale-Hubbell AV rated since 2008.
Originally from Natchitoches, La., Laurie received her undergraduate degree from LSU before moving to New Orleans.
Education
-
J.D., magna cum laude, from Tulane University Law School, 1993
- Senior Articles Editor of the Tulane Law Review
- Order of the Coif
- B.A., magna cum laude, from Louisiana State University, 1988
Clerkship
- The Honorable Morey L. Sear of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, 1993-94, 1997-2000
- The Honorable P. Trevor Sharp, Magistrate Judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, 2001-2002
Representative Matters
Laurie’s prior experience includes the following:
- As a clerk for the Honorable Morey L. Sear, worked on a number of multidistrict litigation cases, including the Michael Milken junk bond litigation, the Ford Bronco II rollover litigation, the In re Pabst patent litigation, and the M/V Bright Field limitation of liability proceeding.
- In her first year of private practice, sat second chair in three related trials in St. John the Baptist Parish, all of which arose from an incident involving a natural gas pipeline leak; in a bellwether jury trial that was part of that litigation, the team secured a “$0” jury verdict for 19 of 24 bellwether plaintiffs after more than a year of litigation.
- In 2014, was second to the General Counsel for Huntington Ingalls, where she assisted in the transition and winding down of the Avondale Shipyard facility, playing a more transactional role.