Tolar Harrigan & Morris LLC

What the firm covers and where it appears

Based in New Orleans, Louisiana, the firm calls itself full-service. Its practice runs across three connected areas: intellectual property, business and commercial matters, and employment law. It represents clients on matters across the United States, so its work reaches well beyond Louisiana.

A full-service label can mean many things. Here it points to the three practice groups the site names, each with its own body of law and its own forums. A client dealing with a patent, a contract fight, and a wage claim finds all three inside the same firm.

The attorneys appear before a wide set of courts and agencies. Those include the Louisiana Supreme Court, the United States Supreme Court, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. They also work through arbitration and mediation forums. In my opinion, working before both a state high court and the U.S. Supreme Court points to a practice used to appellate stakes, and its filings at the patent office add a federal registration role on top.

Inside the intellectual property practice

Patents, trademarks, and copyrights form the core of this side of the firm. The attorneys state nearly seventy years of combined experience in patent and trademark matters. That experience covers the everyday tasks these cases demand and the disputes that follow when rights come under challenge.

Patents and trademarks

On the patent side, the firm drafts and prosecutes patent applications and runs patentability searches. A search of this kind checks an invention against earlier filings before an application goes forward. Patent prosecution then runs through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, where an examiner reviews the claims and the applicant answers through several rounds of written correspondence before a patent issues. Trademark work covers registration and enforcement, and an examining attorney checks each mark against those already on the register.

Trademark enforcement can begin with a demand letter and move to court when a mark holder believes another business is trading on its name. The firm handles registration first and enforcement later, so it can work on a mark at the application stage and again in any later dispute.

Copyrights and infringement claims

Copyright work covers filing and the litigation that can follow it. The firm also handles infringement litigation across these rights. An infringement case asks a court to compare the protected work or mark against the accused one, and it often turns on close reading of the registration and the record. Matters like these can move between the registration office and the courtroom, and the firm works at both stages.

Business and commercial disputes

Beyond intellectual property, the firm handles commercial transactions and the disputes that grow out of them. Commercial litigation and business law form this part of the practice. Named subjects include contract, insurance, construction, real estate, and legal malpractice law.

Commercial cases often start well before a courtroom date. Parties exchange documents, take depositions, and test each claim against the contract language that governs it. Many matters settle or move to arbitration before a full trial. The firm's presence in arbitration and mediation forums fits that pattern, and its business law work gives it a footing in the transactions that these disputes tend to concern.

Each of the named subjects carries its own rules. Construction disputes often involve contracts among owners, contractors, and subcontractors, along with questions of payment and delay. Insurance matters can turn on the wording of a policy and whether a given loss falls within it. Legal malpractice claims ask whether an attorney's work met the standard the situation called for. The firm's business practice touches all of these subjects.

Employment matters for employers and workers

Claims under four statutes anchor the employment practice, and the firm takes them on for employers and for employees alike. The work covers the FLSA, the FMLA, the FRSA, and the Louisiana Wage Payment Act. Wage-and-hour questions and workplace discrimination both fall inside this practice.

The federal statutes here each address a different concern. The FLSA sets rules on minimum wage and overtime. The FMLA covers job-protected leave for family and medical reasons. The FRSA protects railroad workers who report safety problems. The Louisiana Wage Payment Act governs how and when a departing employee receives final pay.

The firm appears before the EEOC and OSHA. A discrimination charge usually begins with a filing at the EEOC, which reviews the complaint and may investigate before a lawsuit can proceed. Wage-and-hour claims under the FLSA turn on records of hours worked and the rate of pay, so documents often decide them. As a reviewer, I read a single firm handling these cases for management and for staff as a sign of familiarity with the arguments each side tends to raise.

The attorneys named on the site

Three attorneys carry the firm: Kenneth L. Tolar, Brad Harrigan, and Jack E. Morris. Their surnames make up the firm's name, and each appears on the firm's attorney page.

The firm groups patent work, commercial disputes, and employment claims under one roof. A client with an intellectual property question and a related business dispute can bring both to the same three lawyers. The firm operates from a single office in New Orleans, Louisiana.