About the IAPP

Steve Herman is special counsel in the firm’s Litigation Section. With thirty years of experience, his primary practice focus recently has been on representing both plaintiffs and defendants in commercial, class action, and professional liability cases. Steve also is often asked to provide expert testimony in such matters.

Steve maintains a broad civil practice. He has handled everything from highway defect and products liability cases to fire and flood loss cases, to attorney fee disputes and employment cases, to special appellate work before the Louisiana Supreme Court and other courts of appeal. Notably, in 2010 he was appointed by the Court to serve as one of two Liaison and Lead Class Counsel for all businesses, individuals, and local governments involved in the Deepwater Horizon/BP Oil Spill litigation.

Steve teaches an advanced torts seminar on class actions at Loyola Law School and an advanced civil procedure course in complex litigation at Tulane. He has given numerous speeches on consumer fraud, tobacco, maritime, and managed care litigation; complex discovery, electronic discovery, and spoliation; preemption, privilege, trial preparation, deposition strategy, motion practice, legal ethics and professionalism, class actions, and complex litigation. He is the author of America and the Law: Challenges for the 21st Century, and he maintains a What’s New in the Courts law blog (or “blawg”) at GravierHouse.com.

Steve served as the 2023-24 President of the New Orleans Bar Association and is the Chair of its Nominating Committee. He is the Chair of the Louisiana State Bar Association’s (LSBA) Section on Class Action, Mass Tort, and Complex Litigation, and he currently serves on the standing LSBA Rules of Professional Conduct Committee. He is also a patron fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

Steve is a past president of the Louisiana Association for Justice (LAJ), and he currently serves as Chair of the organization’s Amicus Curiae Committee. He is also an active member of the American Association for Justice (AAJ), currently serving both as Chair of its Amicus Curiae Committee and—since 2014—as a Louisiana representative on the Board of Governors. Steve is a fellow of both the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and the Litigation Counsel of America, and he is a member of the American Law Institute (ALI). Steve served for six years as a Lawyer Chair for one of the Louisiana Disciplinary Board Hearing Committees.

Steve is a former Louisiana Appleseed board member, a former Southeast Louisiana Legal Services board member, and a past president of both the National Civil Justice Institute (formerly the Pound Civil Justice Institute) and the Civil Justice Foundation.

In 2017, Steve was presented with the Stalwart Award, LAJ’s highest honor, and in 2018 he received the Harry Philo Award from the AAJ. He was named a finalist for the Public Justice (formerly the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice) Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2005. Steve also has been recognized by Best Lawyers®, Louisiana Super Lawyers, Lawdragon Top 500, National Law Journal Elite, Chambers USA, New Orleans Magazine Top Lawyers, and Who’s Who. Steve was named a New Orleans CityBusiness Leadership-in-the-Law (LiL) Recipient in 2010, 2017, and 2018 before being inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Steve received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth College, where he was awarded Citations of Excellence in the study of Milton and Shakespeare and won the Eleanor Frost Playwriting Competition with his one-act play, The Phoenix Sleeps Tonight. He was named Order of the Coif at Tulane Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude.

After graduating from Tulane, Steve clerked for Justice Harry T. Lemmon of the Louisiana Supreme Court.