V. Thomas Clark Jr. joined Adams and Reese in 2005 and serves as Partner in Charge of the Baton Rouge office and on the firm's New Orleans/Baton Rouge Development Team, Louisiana Office Strategic Planning Committee and the Recruiting Committee.
Tom has been practicing law since 1990, focusing on complex commercial litigation and insurance regulatory dispute resolution, as well as filmed entertainment representation. He has represented a variety of interests in complex commercial disputes, including directors and officers and their insurers, accountants in contract and professional liability disputes and various insurance, reinsurance, excess and surplus lines entities.
With a background in entertainment law, he also devotes a significant portion of his practice to helping clients in the film and digital-media industry earn tax credits that will assist them in locating to Louisiana or expanding their presence in the state. Tom has an active voice in putting those tax credits in place by coordinating with the Legislature, Louisiana Economic Development and Division of Administration officials. He represents various producers, directors, screenwriters and providers of ancillary services to the industry. He currently serves as General Counsel for Louisiana Entertainment Industries Association, a trade association established to represent the coalesced interests of the entertainment industry, and Right Quick Productions, LLC, an organization focused on producing documentaries and curricula detailing educational issues, as well as providing applied arts education to young people.
One of Tom's clients is the owner and developer of the $665M Red Stick Studio Project in Baton Rouge, and Tom has helped them win two court decisions in the past two years that could result in $229M for tax credits for the project. The legal work that Tom has done has served as a model for the manner in which film tax infrastructure credits are utilized in the state.
Tom also represents private and public insurance interests in regulatory and litigated disputes involving all lines of insurance and reinsurance in both solvent and insolvent proceedings. He has represented insuring entities, managing general agents, administrative service companies, self-insurance funds, intermediaries and producers in obtaining regulatory consents and approvals. For five years, Tom acted as United States coordinating counsel for a London Market insurer in more than 75 declaratory judgment actions throughout the United States involving asbestos, pollution and health hazard disputes between corporate insureds and excess insurance carriers.
Tom is admitted to practice in all Louisiana State Courts, the Louisiana Supreme Court, the United States District Courts of Louisiana and the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. He has also been admitted pro hac vice in numerous other jurisdictions.
He is active in several professional organizations such as the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, American and Federal Bar Associations, as well as the International Association of Insurance Receivers, INSOL, the National Association of Managed Care Regulators, and Association of Insurance Compliance Professionals. From 2001-2003, he served as Editor and Publications Committee Chair of "The Insurance Receiver," an internationally distributed quarterly trade publication, and served as its Features Editor from 1995 until 2001. Tom also served as the Fifth Circuit Editor for the American Bar Association Reference Handbook on Insurance Company Insolvency, 4th Edition.
Tom is active in the community, serving on various boards, including:
- Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, and chair of the Nominating Committee.
- Louisiana Committee of 100.
- Louisiana Committee for Economic Development - Biotech/Pharmaceutical Subcommittee.
- Louisiana Committee for a Secure Louisiana and Plan of Government Reform Issue Council for the Baton Rouge Area Chamber of Commerce.
In 2006 and 2007, Tom participated in the Baton Rouge Area Canvas Workshop for the Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce. Previously he served on the Board of Trustees of Magnolia Mound Plantation 2001-2003, and as a member of the Government Fiscal Affairs Committee of the Greater Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce and the State Affairs Council of the Greater Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce 1992-1993. Tom completed the Political Training Institute Program in 1991 in Baton Rouge.
In 1990, Tom received his J.D. from Paul M. Hebert Law Center of Louisiana State University, and earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Louisiana State University in 1986.
Tom enjoys spending his spare time with his wife and two children, and also playing a lot of competitive and recreational tennis.
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