Curtis R.

Hearn

Position: Partner
Office: New Orleans

Curt Hearn is a partner in the Corporate Practice Group. Curt served as co-leader of the Corporate Practice Group for more than 20 years, stepping down at the end of 2022. Drawing on his extensive experience and knowledge of what works — and what doesn’t — he works with firm clients to solve their most challenging, complex business and legal challenges.

Curt advises private equity and venture capital firms, as well as publicly traded and privately held companies, working with them to solve their most challenging and critical business and legal challenges, including negotiating major acquisitions and dispositions, working through sensitive board fiduciary issues and conflicts, raising capital, and helping financially distressed businesses navigate competing interests as they seek to restructure their balance sheets and return to solvency. He provides sophisticated guidance at the leading edge of emerging market and regulatory developments, with an emphasis on companies in the energy, energy service, offshore wind, healthcare, manufacturing, and logistics industries.

As part of his extensive work in the private equity sector, Curt has advised on whole-company acquisitions, asset purchases and sales, carve-outs, and spinoffs, among other transactions. He represents clients on mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures, as well as capital raising transactions.

Curt also advises owners, senior executives, and boards of directors of a variety of public and private companies on matters such as compliance with US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosure laws and Sarbanes-Oxley; preparing proxy materials and navigating proxy contests; implementing anti-takeover defenses, including stockholder rights plans; and drafting indemnification and employment contracts, among other corporate governance matters.

Curt has been involved in numerous healthcare industry company transactions. He has represented buyers and sellers in public and private transactions involving the acquisition of hospitals and hospital groups; purchase and sale of managed healthcare plans; and purchase of companies in ancillary healthcare services such as imaging, healthcare technology, assisted living, and skilled nursing facilities. He also has been lead counsel on complex healthcare joint ventures.

Throughout the past decade, Curt has been a lead transactional lawyer in assisting buyer and sellers of financially distressed companies. He works closely with the firm’s bankruptcy and finance practice groups with respect to purchases and sales of distressed businesses both outside of bankruptcy and through sales completed under the administration of the bankruptcy courts.

Ranked Band 1 in the area of Corporate/M&A in Chambers USA – America's Leading Lawyers for Business, he is described by clients as a "very thoughtful and articulate" professional providing "strategic negotiating advice" that draws on his "general and specialized expertise."