Rodney & Etter, LLC is focused on environmental litigation and toxic torts, the handling of complex civil litigation, and intellectual property law

Environmental Litigation and Toxic Torts

The Gulf South has a long history of toxic tort class action and environmental claims related to the energy, chemical, and transportation industries, natural disasters, and catastrophic events. Rodney & Etter, LLC has experience in environmental and complex litigation, including cases involving lead, asbestos, and toxic torts.

Complex Litigation

Our complex litigation practice involves every type of business dispute, including contract claims and business torts, unfair trade practices, bankruptcy, franchise disputes, and civil rights and constitutional issues. The attorneys practicing complex litigation have appeared in federal and state courts and before administrative agencies throughout the region. They have also appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Intellectual Property Law

Rodney & Etter, LLC specializes in the litigation of patent, copyright, trademark, and unfair competition matters. Our lawyers have extensive experience in intellectual property litigation, have appeared in federal and state courts throughout the region. Our attorneys rank among some of the best in the country in intellectual law and thoroughly understand your exclusive rights to your ideas, inventions and creative works.

Pro Bono

While the firm maintains a varied practice, representing both plaintiffs and defendants, it has continued to take at least one case per year, which it believes is in the best interest of the public.  We have exhibited for over twenty years a commitment to pro bono litigation, civil rights, and issues of public health and justice.  Mr. Rodney received the Louisiana State Bar Association’s Annual Pro Bono Award and the Louis A. Martinet Legal Society’s Lawyer of the Year Award. Mr. Rodney is also the past Chairman of the Civil Trial Advocacy Section of the National Bar Association.  The following paragraphs provide a non-exclusive listing of some of the firm’s more notable pro bono activities.

Chisom v. Roemer, 501 U.S. 380; 111 S.Ct. 2354 (1991) - In 1986, Roy J. Rodney, Jr. was one of the lead plaintiff attorneys in the case of Chisom v. Edwards, 839 F.2d 1056 (5th Cir. 1988); 970 F.2d 1408 (5th Cir. 1992).  Prior to the resolution of this case, better known as Chisom v. Roemer, 501 U.S. 380, 111 S.Ct. 2354 (1991), an African-American Justice had never had the opportunity to be elected to a Supreme Court position.  Along with his associates at the time, Mr. Rodney filed this case after years of proposed legislation failed to reform judicial districts. This was effectively, and often intentionally, diluting the voting strength of Louisiana’s large African-American communities.  The collective cases of Chisom v. Roemer and Clark v. Roemer, 500 U.S. 646; 111 S. Ct. 2096 (1991), desegregated the Louisiana Trial, Appellate, and Supreme Courts, forever changing the face of Louisiana’s judiciary.  Louisiana now enjoys more women and minority judges per capita than any state in the union.

Jackson v. Louisiana - In the late 1980s, Louisiana reacted to Jesse Jackson’s announced candidacy for the presidency in a manner that reflected the long and sordid history of racial discrimination and polarization in elections.  Then Governor Edwin Edwards considered canceling the democratic primary election in order to prevent the Jackson campaign from having a chance of winning Louisiana.  In Jackson v. Louisiana, principals in our firm filed suit to prevent Louisiana from cancelling the elections.  As a result, the Jackson campaign was freed and therefore able to achieve a historic victory in Louisiana.

Dillon v. Papale - In the highly-contested 1986 Senatorial race between Democratic Congressman John Breaux and Republican Henson Moore for the seat of Acadia Parish, Republicans mounted one of the most nefarious voter-purge schemes in the history of American politics, seeking to disenfranchise tens of thousands of primarily African-American voters in Louisiana.  Principals in the firm prosecuted an injunction and were successful in preventing this purge.

Wallace v. Chertoff, No. 05-5519 (E.D.La.2006) - In the post-Katrina diaspora, New Orleans had no plans of holding mayoral elections. This was primarily attributed to the fact that there was no way to contact more than 250,000 displaced voters residing outside of New Orleans.  The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had refused to provide the names and addresses of voters to would-be candidates.  In response to this, the firm filed and petitioned an injunction, forcing the federal government to enact a plan to allow displaced voters to not only vote by mail, but to receive information regarding the election.  In a 2006 order signed by Judge Ivan Lemelle, the United States District Judge said, in reference to the work done by our firm:

Due in large part to one of the three cases, state officials working with plaintiff-attorneys in that case made wide-reaching beneficial changes in election laws to ameliorate the impact from these storms on displaced registered voters. [...] For the first time in modern history, thousands of our registered voters were able to vote in a city election outside of the city limits.  Despite argument that African-American voters would be less inclined to vote absentee than white voters, an overwhelming majority of absentee ballots were cast by African-American voters in this election.  Moreover, the comparative percentages of early black-white ballots tracked voter registration rolls.  These examples further evidence an extraordinary work in progress. (Order and Reasons, April 21, 2006, pg. 5, Doc. 112)