Kara Hadican Samuels is a member of the New Orleans Bar Association, the Louisiana State Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the American Association for Justice, and the Louisiana Association for Justice, and serves on the board of Southern Repertory Theatre. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she moved to the New Orleans area to receive her undergraduate education at Loyola University New Orleans, where she obtained a B.A. in Drama and Speech, cum laude.

Kara joined the firm as an associate attorney after graduating from Loyola University School of Law, cum laude. She was a member of Loyola Law Review and Loyola Moot Court and upon graduation, received honors as a William L. Crowe, Sr. Scholar. In 2005, she was the recipient of a Gillis Long Poverty Law Center Award for her work in the Loyola Law Clinic, having successfully won a Post-Conviction Relief Hearing on constitutional law grounds while she was a third- year student.

Kara focuses her practice on assisting victims of products liability and medical malpractice, automobile and trucking collisions, discrimination, and maritime personal injury. She also represents insureds in coverage disputes, works on the plaintiffs' side of complex litigation cases, and maintains an appellate practice.  Kara's practice includes the handling of the Enterobacter sakazakii ("E. sak") infant formula contamination cases.

Kara is married to Mark Samuels, owner and founder of the New Orleans' based record label, Basin Street Records, and lives in a rebuilt home with her husband, her son, Conor, and three step-children, Geoffrey, Eric, and Naomi.

Reported cases:

Borel v. Young, 2007-0419 (La. 11/27/07), 989 So.2d 42 (amicus counsel on rehearing for the Louisiana Association for Justice) (both the one and three-year limitations periods applicable to medical malpractice claims are prescriptive in nature, rather than preemptive).

Bonnette v. State, 2006-1339 (La. App. 4 Cir. 11/14/07), 972 So.2d 340 (holding that EMTALA is a tort action for which the State of Louisiana has waived immunity and that state-run hospital's status as part of the State Charity System did not preclude EMTALA "dumping" claim).

McLachlan v. New York Life Ins. Co., 488 F.3d 624 (5^th Cir. 2007).

Publications: State v. Sylvia: How Possession of Drug Paraphernalia Containing Invisible Trace Amounts of Drug Residue Secures a Louisiana Prosecutor's Case for Possession of Narcotics, 50 Loy. L. Rev. 287, 2004

E-Mail: ksamuels@gainsben.com

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