Adams and Reese is proud to announce Edwin C. Laizer, a Partner in the firm’s New Orleans office, and James B. McLaren Jr., a Partner in the firm’s Memphis, Tenn. office, have been named to Adams and Reese’s Executive Committee, effective January 1, 2020.
The firm’s Executive Committee is the management body of the firm and consists of six Partners, each elected by their fellow Partners to serve a three-year term.
A seasoned litigator, Laizer has many years of representing clients in the insurance, energy, marine, transportation, construction and commercial arenas. This includes advising clients on insurance coverage issues and handling sophisticated coverage litigation, as well as defending complex personal injury and death, property damage and construction dispute claims, as well as litigating all manner of contract disputes, commercial disputes and maritime claims. He has served several clients as outside general counsel and, as a result, has developed a broad range of knowledge on a variety of issues faced every day by his clients. Laizer has been involved in a number of high-profile, complex, mass tort, class action and maritime limitation of liability actions.
In the transactional part of his practice, Laizer has experience drafting, litigating and negotiating maritime and construction contracts, particularly those involving indemnity and insurance coverage. He has negotiated and drafted contracts and subcontracts for several large construction projects and has also worked on several mergers and acquisitions involving entities in the offshore and construction industries.
Laizer is a past Chair of the Admiralty and Maritime Law Committee of the Tort and Insurance Practice Section of the American Bar Association. He is a 1985 graduate of Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and received his B.B.A. from Loyola University in 1983.
McLaren advises on middle-market M&A and finance transactions as well as provides counsel in connection with project finance including economic development incentives throughout the Southeast. He also serves as outside general counsel for a number of entities, many of which he has represented for more than 20 years.
McLaren represents commercial lenders and borrowers in connection with lending facilities, and issuers and borrowers in taxable and tax-exempt bond issues including serving as issuer’s counsel, bond counsel and borrower’s counsel in connection with low-income housing projects, health care facilities, infrastructure, industrial facilities and sports facilities. He also negotiates agreements to develop commercial real estate, including property acquisition, financing and construction agreements. He represents business and industry in establishing and expanding industrial and commercial operations including land assembly, project finance, state and local government incentives and public-private partnerships. Recently, he was profiled in Mid-South Super Lawyers for a feature on his economic development work with the expansion of Graceland, which Elvis Presley once called home, and how he is working with client Elvis Presley Enterprises on this project. McLaren has been involved in numerous sizable economic development projects in the Memphis area.
In addition to his involvement in national and local bar associations, McLaren is a member of the National Association of Bond Lawyers and a board member of the Tennessee Association of Corporate Growth.