headshot in black and white for Louis Y. Fishman

Practice Focus

Corporate Governance, Corporate Law, Mergers and Acquisitions, Securities, Private Equity and Venture Capital

Fishman Haygood founding partner Louis Fishman is counsel to the firm and a member of our Business Section. His transactional practice includes corporation law, securities, and mergers and acquisitions. He also counsels clients on resolving disputes within family and other closely held businesses.

Louis has been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America® in Corporate Law since that publication’s first edition in 1983. In 2009, he was named that publication’s first New Orleans Corporate Lawyer of the Year and its first New Orleans Mergers & Acquisitions Lawyer of the Year in 2010. In 2011, Lawdragon named Louis to its “500 Leading Lawyers in America” guide, which represents far less than 1 percent of the legal profession, calling him “without question one of the very best corporate transactional attorneys in the South.” He is ranked as Senior Statespeople by Chambers and Partners in the Corporate/Mergers & Acquisitions category of America’s Leading Lawyers for Business.

He was a founder and has served since 1988 on the planning committee of Tulane’s Corporate Law Institute, and as a member of the Advisory Board of Editors for the Tulane Law Review since 1991. He has held several key posts with the Louisiana State Bar Association’s Section on Corporation and Business Law, including chairman, and has served as a member of that Section’s Corporate Laws Committee. Louis is an Adjunct Professor of Law at Tulane Law School, where he currently teaches a mini-course on corporate governance.

For his distinguished professional achievements and his enduring dedication to the mission and students of Tulane Law School, Louis was selected for induction into the 2024 Tulane Law Hall of Fame Class. He was also named the 2022 recipient of the Isidore Newman School’s Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Education

  • LL.M., Sterling Fellow, from Yale Law School, 1966
  • L.L.B. from Tulane Law School, 1965
    • Editor-in-Chief of the Tulane Law Review
    • Order of the Coif
  • B.B.A. from Tulane University, 1963

Publications / Presentations

  • Co-presenter, “CLE for the Transactional Lawyer,” Louisiana State Bar Association (May 5, 2023)
  • Co-presenter, “CLE for the Transactional Lawyer,” Louisiana State Bar Association (May 6, 2022)

Representative Matters

  • First National Bank of Commerce’s issuance of $3.0 billion of bank notes.
  • First Commerce Corporation’s $3.1 billion acquisition by Bank One.
  • Doane Products Company’s $250 million sale to financial investors.
  • The Laitram Corporation’s sale of its Digicourse subsidiary.
  • US Unwired’s registered exchange offer for its subordinated notes and its initial public offering.
  • Capital One Southcoast’s underwriting of a registered public offering of convertible preferred stock.
  • A number of “PIPE” transactions in which Capital One Southcoast acted as placement agent.
  • Formation of a hedge fund for Hirsch Financial Management LLC and representation of it in connection with a private placement of fund units.
  • Representation of Rouses, the largest grocery store chain headquartered in Louisiana, in acquisition of 20 stores from A&P.
  • Assisted an insurance agency in being acquired by a large national agency.
  • Assisted a CEO and CFO in connection with their retention (“rollover”) of a substantial part of their significant equity in a shipping business whose controlling equity was sold to a private equity firm.
  • Served as special securities law counsel for Chef Emeril Lagasse’s sale of certain non-restaurant assets to Martha Stewart Living.
  • Assisted Sanderson Farms, Inc. in its public sale of $115 million of common stock.