Lara

Sevener

Position: Partner
Office: New Orleans

Lara Sevener is a partner in the Corporate Practice Group, member of the commercial transactions team, and co-leader of the Technology Industry Team. Lara’s practice focuses on advising clients with respect to strategic commercial contracting as well as drafting and negotiating complex technology, outsourcing, and digital transactions.

Lara has more than 20 years of experience advising clients on technology-related transactions, both as a lawyer in private practice, where she advised clients on both the supplier and customer sides across a broad range of sectors, and as in-house counsel to a number of market-leading national and multinational organizations. Lara draws on her experience as in-house commercial, procurement, and technology counsel to provide results-oriented, business-practical legal advice and obtain market-leading positions in the contracts she negotiates.

Lara draws on her deep experience negotiating technology transactions to counsel clients on a broad range of technology matters, including digital transformation, strategic sourcing, business process and other strategic outsourcing transactions, software as a service, anything as a service, application support and maintenance, software licensing and development, end-user support, digital advertising and marketing, and strategic alliance and ecosystem agreements.

Lara has represented international and domestic businesses, including publicly traded corporations, privately held companies, utilities, and partnerships in multimillion-dollar transactions domestically and globally. She regularly advises on the use, licensing, acquisition, and commercialization of intellectual property, including matters regarding privacy and data protection. Lara is well versed in transactional data privacy and advises clients on the most effective contractual mechanisms to comply with US and international data privacy laws and attendant issues that frequently arise in cross-border commercial and technology transactions.

Prior to joining Jones Walker, Lara served as global lead procurement, technology, and outsourcing counsel for a leading global audit and consulting organization. Her in-house experience also includes serving as lead e-commerce counsel for a $150 billion, Fortune 50 home improvement retailer and as senior counsel for technology and procurement for one of the largest producers of electricity in the United States and the largest wholesale energy provider in the Southeast. A skilled negotiator, Lara understands the real-world business implications of technology transactions and works closely with clients to provide practical, creative solutions to complex business problems.