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Assistant

Lisa Moran

504.299.6111

“I provide my clients with an experienced, detail-oriented approach taking into account how all members of the jury might look at and consider the issues and the evidence and using trial themes that will resonate with all jurors.”

Overview

LuLu Reisman is a skilled trial lawyer who has handled a wide range of commercial and tort litigation including cases involving products liability and warranty claims, toxic torts, breach of contract, intellectual property disputes, maritime disasters, and claims of defective construction. In her more than thirty years of practice, LuLu has represented her clients in numerous jury and bench trials and has headed up and managed large litigation teams while serving as lead trial counsel. Many of the cases she handles are document intensive, necessitating the use of e-discovery, technology assisted review (TAR), ESI protocols and carefully drafted protective orders. At trial, LuLu and her team are able to marshal and present the most important evidence in complex scientific and technical matters in a way that is understandable by both juries and judges. She is individually ranked by the prestigious Chambers and Partners USA Guide.

Lulu taught toxic tort law at Tulane Law School, where she graduated in 1990 summa cum laude, and has vast experience handling toxic tort matters alleging exposure resulting in various types of cancer (including leukemia and lymphoma) as well as other diseases including encephalopathy. She also has helped clients in numerous personal injury, wrongful death, and property damage cases involving both industrial and consumer product exposures to a variety of chemicals including benzene, toluene, hydrogen sulfide, formaldehyde, organic tin and trichloroethylene (TCE).

In the maritime area, LuLu cut her professional teeth working on the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history – the collision in the Philippines between the MV DONA PAZ passenger ferry and the MT VECTOR. Since then, she has represented a major commercial barge line in cases involving cargo disputes, barge breakaways, and personal injuries. LuLu has represented clients who have suffered property damage and deferred production arising from offshore casualties, and she has been asked to interpret contractual indemnity and insurance provisions, master service agreements, drilling contracts and charter agreements. LuLu has also handled numerous Jones Act and longshore claims.  

LuLu has extensive experience questioning medical, engineering, toxicological, and other scientific experts at trial, in class certification proceedings, Daubert hearings, and in depositions throughout the country and abroad. She served as lead counsel in a court requested Science Day at which experts in the fields of epidemiology, air modeling, toxicology and oncology testified and she has been called upon to cross-examine a patent applicant’s attorneys and patent agent in a patent trial.  

In products liability and warranty matters, LuLu’s practice has included cases involving aerial platforms, offshore drilling tools and equipment, building materials, cranes, and chemical compounds. She has handled construction disputes for both industrial owners and individuals as well as their subrogated property insurers and subcontractors. Examples of the class action matters she has handled include claims made by neighboring residents in chemical release areas and by consumers who purchased gasoline that allegedly damaged fuel gauges in vehicles. LuLu was recognized by New Orleans Magazine as a “Top Lawyer” in Products Liability Litigation and Construction Law.

LuLu’s practice also includes litigation involving patent infringement and intellectual property disputes as well as various breach of contract claims. Her undergraduate degree in business management from the A.B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University, which she earned summa cum laude, assists her in understanding the business side of her clients’ cases. LuLu has been named repeatedly to The Best Lawyers in America in the practice area of Commercial Litigation.   

Insights

Highlights

Notable Experience

Toxic Torts

  • LuLu served as lead trial counsel for a major company in toxic tort litigation pending in federal court in the Northern District of Mississippi arising out of a former hubcap manufacturing facility that was designated as a Superfund site. Neighboring property owners filed numerous property damage, personal injury, and wrongful death claims relating to what their experts claimed was a “cancer cluster” resulting from exposure to trichloroethylene (TCE) in the air and groundwater. LuLu convinced the trial court to enter a Lone Pine order to phase discovery so that the plaintiffs’ experts were required to establish general causation prior to conducting any factual or expert discovery related to specific causation. She later served as one of two lead counsel for the defendants during a “Science Day” at which numerous experts from throughout the country made presentations to the federal court judge and magistrate judge relative to air modeling, epidemiology, oncology, and toxicology. Shortly thereafter, LuLu secured a favorable settlement for her client following a multi-day settlement conference.
  • LuLu represented a Louisiana chemical plant operator facing serious personal injury claims involving brain damage due to alleged toxic encephalopathy resulting from exposure to organic tin compounds. Not only were compensatory damages at issue, but LuLu’s client faced liability for exemplary damages. “We decided to try one of these cases in front of a jury,” LuLu explained, “which resulted in the longest civil jury trial in the history of the parish.” LuLu obtained a zero verdict for her client.
  • LuLu represented an oil and gas company following the deaths of two workers overcome by hydrogen sulfide while capping and abandoning old oil wells. LuLu was one of the first on the scene along with her client representative during the Coast Guard investigation of the matter and subsequently handled the litigation in the Eastern District of Louisiana.
  • Following a fire and explosion at a chemical manufacturing site located across the Mississippi River from downtown New Orleans, LuLu represented the chemical company at a three-day class action certification hearing.
  • LuLu represented former executives of a company that provided cleaning services to ships in the port of New Orleans who were sued when a longshoreman died of mesothelioma and his heirs claimed long-term occupational exposure to benzene. In their defense, LuLu argued the plaintiff did not have the legal right to sue the executives, because the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act preempts Louisiana law. The claim was favorably settled.
  • LuLu handled a case involving alleged exposure to toxic mold in a home arising from an impropertly installed HVAC system. Following extensive depositions of numerous experts, the matter was favorably settled.

Intellectual Property

  • LuLu served as lead trial counsel for a major baby products manufacturer in a matter in federal court in the Western District of Louisiana. LuLu’s client was accused of breaching a competitor’s design and utility patents. Following an eight day trial, LuLu and her team established by clear and convincing evidence that the opposing party had “unclean hands” because it had engaged in deceit and “reprehensible” conduct during the litigation.  As a result, the district court dismissed all claims against LuLu’s client, which included claims for utility patent infringement, design patent infringement, and trade dress infringement.
  • LuLu served as lead counsel at an evidentiary bench hearing in the Western District of Louisiana at which she secured a key victory for her client in litigation involving soft silicone spout and straw sippy cups used by young children.
  • LuLu served as appellate counsel before the Fifth Circuit and secured a key reversal for her client relating to its ability to obtain patent-like protection through an exclusive distributorship contract that obligated the former distributor to pay royalties for copying or colorably imitating the designs of LuLu’s client.
  • LuLu is a member of the Federal Circuit and argued an appeal involving issues of inequitable conduct and entitlement to attorneys’ fees based on the exceptional case standard. LuLu convinced the Federal Circuit to vacate and reverse the district court’s findings on both issues.

Products Liability and Breach of Warranty

  • In a case giving rise to litigation in both the Eastern District of Louisiana and the Southern District of Texas, LuLu represented a major oil and gas company after a drilling rig slid off her client’s offshore platform during hurricane conditions following the failure of parking brakes provided by a Norwegian manufacturer. “The products liability and breach of contract case,” according to LuLu, “involved complex engineering, oceanography and meteorology with damages sought from both the drilling contractor and the manufacturer of the brake.” After written discovery and extensive motion practice to overcome the defendant’s Act of God defense, the matter was mediated successfully.
  • LuLu has represented the manufacturer of aerial manlifts in numerous personal injury matters. In one in the Southern District of Texas involving significant injuries, LuLu arranged and conducted a mock trial before several mock juries in Houston, Texas following which she secured a favorable settlement for her client.
  • LuLu was involved in a serious personal injury matter arising from an allegedly defective rotary drilling tool. Following a week of intensive depositions of engineers in Oslo, Norway, the matter was ultimately settled.
  • LuLu represents a chemical manufacturer in a products liability and breach of warranty matter involving an allegedly defective heater that exploded causing a fire in one of the chemical processing units.
  • LuLu represents the manufacturers of helicopter engines and golf carts in various wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits.
  • LuLu represents the manufacturers of helicopter engines and golf carts in various wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits.
  • LuLu represented a major offshore construction company in a lawsuit involving a defectively installed marine crane on a work barge.
  • LuLu helped secure a favorable defense verdict for her client following a two-week jury trial in the Eastern District of Louisiana involving a vacuum truck that exploded at an industrial facility.

Maritime

  • LuLu was a member of the team that handled litigation arising from the largest peacetime maritime disaster in history involving the collision between an oil tanker and a passenger ferry in the Philippines.
  • In one of the first cases to address OPA 90 claims, LuLu was a member of the trial team that obtained a factual finding of no liability for their client following a bench trial in federal court in the Eastern District of Louisiana.
  • LuLu and others at the firm handled a matter involving a semi-submersible drilling rig that broke lose during a hurricane causing extensive damage to a pipeline owned and operated by LuLu’s clients. After extensive pre-trial work up of the matter, it was successfully settled.
  • LuLu has handled numerous Jones Act wrongful death and personal injury trials in the Eastern District of Louisiana and the Southern District of Alabama.
  • LuLu has handled numerous cargo disputes and barge breakaways for various clients.

Construction

  • LuLu represented a sugar company following the collapse of its storage warehouse near Baton Rouge. LuLu sued the manufacturer of the building materials, the contractor who built the warehouse and their insurers through the Louisiana direct action procedure. After LuLu defeated several motions to dismiss regarding insurance and warranty/contract issues, the matter was mediated, and the parties reached a unique two phased Gasquet settlement in which LuLu’s client first settled with the primary insurer reserving its rights against the excess insurer. Settlement was subsequently entered with the excess insurer as well.
  • LuLu represented numerous homeowners in suits against an elevation contractor, the company that issued the surety bond, and its insurers for fraudulent conduct and faulty workmanship. After many years of extensive motion practice in Civil District Court in New Orleans involving various insurance coverage issues relating to when the damages manifested and claims by the insurers that the “work product” exclusion applied to bar coverage, the matters were ultimately settled.
  • LuLu represented a spray foam installation contractor in a defective construction suit brought by the homeowner against the general contractor and numerous subcontractors. After obtaining an expert witness and inspecting the home, LuLu’s team obtained a favorable settlement for her client.

Commercial Litigation

  • LuLu served as lead trial counsel for a mass tort administration company based in California in a contractual dispute with a local law firm relating to services rendered and fees due under the commercial contract negotiated by the parties.
  • LuLu served as lead trial counsel in an unfair trade practices and anti-trust lawsuit filed by a local distributor against LuLu’s client and a major retailer. LuLu and her team obtained an early dismissal of the matter, which was pending in the Eastern District of Louisiana.
  • LuLu represented a landlord in a lease dispute filed by the tenant involving complex contractual and insurance issues.
  • LuLu asserted bad faith claims against a property insurer who denied coverage and wrongfully invoked a mold exclusion. Following a week-long jury trial, a verdict was entered against the insurer for property damages, mental anguish damages, and penalties based on bad faith denial of insurance coverage.

Involvement

  • The Maritime Law Association, Associate Member
  • New Orleans, Louisiana State, and American Bar Associations, Member
  • Tulane University Law School, Former Adjunct Lecturer of Law, “Toxic Tort Law, Theory, and Science”

Recognition

 

Credentials

Education

  • Tulane University Law School (J.D., summa cum laude, 1990)
    • Order of the Coif
    • Tulane Law Review, Associate Editor, 1989–1990
  • Tulane University (B.S.M., summa cum laude, 1987)
    • Beta Gamma Sigma

Bar Admissions

  • Texas, 2006
  • Louisiana, 1990

Court Admissions

  • U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit
  • U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
  • U.S. District Court, Eastern District, Louisiana
  • U.S. District Court, Middle District, Louisiana
  • U.S. District Court, Western District, Louisiana

Clerkships

Law Clerk to the Honorable Luther F. Cole, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1990–1991

Presentations

  • “Advance Planning for Mitigating Adverse Events in a Regulated Industry: Strategies and Resources," National Association of Manufacturers ("NAM") Legal Summit, Washington D.C., November 6-7, 2023
  • "The Role of Legal Leaders in International Business Relations," ALM Women, Influence & Power In Law Conference, October 18, 2023

Publications

After Hours

LuLu loves playing, coaching, and watching sports and is a huge Saints fan. She began coaching her daughter’s recreational and travel softball teams back in 2004 and continued to serve as a volunteer coach of a diverse group of players at Carrollton Boosters playground in uptown New Orleans long after her daughter ended her playing career. LuLu served as a working mom role model to her players, many of whom have now gone on to have their own professional careers. LuLu was a state champion tennis player as a teenager, a member of Tulane University’s varsity tennis team, and played in USTA (United States Tennis Association) leagues at the 4.5 level. When not on the softball field or the tennis court, LuLu can often be found attending a country music concert with her husband or son, managing her real estate investments, fishing off the coast of Jupiter, Florida, or planning her next family vacation to the Caribbean.

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