Elia has valuable litigation experience representing insurers as direct action defendants and has defended thousands of occupational exposure claims. Her experience defending mass tort claims enables her to provide early strategic planning, vigorous defense, and efficient litigation. Certified in Cybersecurity Litigation, Elia trains clients on protecting themselves with regard to the ever-growing risk of data breaches.
From our New Orleans office, Elia is a shareholder in the firm. Her primary areas of practice are industrial employment/long-latency lung disease litigation, insurance defense and coverage, environmental law, risk management and data protection, and commercial litigation. In the last eighteen years, Elia has successfully defended thousands of occupational exposure claims, including exposure to asbestos and silica-containing products. Elia focuses her practice on insurance coverage litigation and counseling, and has significant experience representing insurers as direct action defendants in litigation in Louisiana. Elia’s extensive experience defending mass tort claims enables her to provide clients with an early strategic plan, vigorous defense, and efficient litigation.
Elia also focuses on several insurance coverage practice areas including third-party insurance coverage, general liability, environmental and toxic tort liability coverage and Cybersecurity Litigation. Additionally, her knowledge and experience with property insurance coverage and bad faith claims litigation has allowed her to serve as defense counsel for insurers in commercial and residential property insurance cases resulting from hurricanes, hailstorms, and other first-party claims.
Elia‘s professional credentials include being nominated as an AV-rated attorney, an honor bestowed on less than 5% of women lawyers. As an AV-rated attorney, Elia was selected for the inaugural edition of the Martindale-Hubbell® Bar Register of Preeminent Women Lawyers™ – an organization created exclusively for women attorneys who have received the highest possible peer rating in both legal ability and ethical standards.
Recognized by Chambers USA as a 2017 Women in Law Future Leader Gender Diversity Award winner, Elia is involved in monitoring legal trends and proposed laws that have a direct impact or effect on her clients. Elia actively promotes diversity and the inclusion of women and Hispanics in the legal professions through various professional organizations. She is a member of the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA), where she currently holds the title of National President and is one of fifty members selected nationally to participate in the HNBA/Associate of Corporate Counsel Executive Leadership Program. Elia moves into the presidential position after spending the past year as President-Elect and previous years in a variety of leadership positions with the organization. Her involvement with the HNBA came after her role as a past-president of the Hispanic Lawyers of Louisiana. In 2017, Elia was appointed to the United States Senate Republican Task Force on the Hispanic Affairs Advisor Committee. These positions of honor allow her access to legal trends and proposed laws that directly impact or affect the local Hispanic community. Her professional engagements include a variety of presentations on effectively communicating with corporate counsel, diversity seminars, leading round-table discussions at several in-house corporate meetings, serving as a diversity facilitator for the Louisiana State Bar Association, participating in the Louisiana State Bar Association’s diversity and inclusion video, and presenting continuing legal education throughout the state.
Elia also serves on the Board of Directors of the ASI Federal Credit Union, which facilitates loans of all sizes for transportation, home-ownership, business development, and education as well as international microloans in partnership with Kiva, a non-profit connecting individual investors with microfinance institutions.
In addition to her professional pursuits, Elia also volunteers and participates in a number of social and community programs including elementary school reading programs and various habitat/environmental groups, including Habitat for Humanity. She is a founding member of Candy Girls/Life Savers of New Orleans, a non-profit group that supports and provides services to families in need as well as a local orphanage.
University of Southwestern Louisiana, B.A., cum laude, 1987
University of Southwestern Louisiana, B.S., cum laude, 1987
University of Southwestern Louisiana, M.S., cum laude, 1989
Loyola University School of Law, J.D., 1994
Louisiana
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