Kenneth H. Hooks, III
Kenneth (Kenny) H. Hooks, III, is a first-generation college and law school graduate from a family of New Orleans Merchant Mariners, commercial fisherman and union dock workers. Kenny grew up on the water with his father and grandfather operating commercial fishing vessels in the south Louisiana waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Lake Borgne and Lake Pontchartrain.
During college at South Eastern Louisiana University (SLU) in Hammond, Louisiana, Kenny was elected as a college of business Student Government Senator, appointed as the Student Government Attorney General, was a four-year rugby player for the university and, during summer breaks, worked as a long-line commercial shark fisherman out of Venice, Louisiana landing thousands of pounds of shark on weekly voyages.
After graduating with finance and management degrees from SLU, Kenny decided to attend the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University. In addition to studying, he took jobs clerking for law professors and various lobbying groups, including the Louisiana Association for Justice, the state’s largest most effective advocacy group protecting people’s rights.
With a working-class background, diligent work ethic and love of all things associated with the water, Kenny decided to dedicate his career to specialize his practice on helping the injured in addition to maritime personal injury, protecting workers rights and ensuring seamen were paid full wages when due.
In addition to that focus, Kenny has built a lifetime of success in and out of the courtroom advocating for individuals and families injured by others – on and off the water. Some of his largest victories have resulted from automobile collisions, plant explosions, product liability burn cases and brain damage litigation where he has used brain diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) with vast success.
Kenny has also devoted a large part of his professional life to teaching the law at Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge as an adjunct professor. Spending 15 years teaching Personal Injury on the water and Admiralty law has helped him learn to deeply understand legal reasoning and statutory interpretation.
Helping form young legal minds to “think like a lawyer” has given him clear insight into how to explain the facts and apply those facts of the law to non-lawyers and those of us who are called upon to sit on a jury to judge our peers. Kenny has also taught class for Tulane University Law School in Rhodes, Greece co-sponsored with Aegean Institute of the Law of the Sea and Maritime Law and a visiting lecturer at Marmara University at Istanbul, Turkey.
Kenny is one of the lawyers appointed to represent the International Transport Workers Federation, the world's largest federation of labor unions handling seafarer cases around the world. In representing foreign seafarers, Kenny has traveled extensively throughout the United States, and worldwide to countries such as the Philippines, Thailand, Canada, India, Peru, Ukraine, Chile, Guatemala, Australia, Greece and Panama.
Kenny has been admitted to practice throughout the United States on a pro hac vice basis in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, California, and is admitted to practice in all state and federal courts of Louisiana, the Federal Court of Washington D.C. and United States Supreme Court. Kenny has authored and co-authored legal articles, lectured and submitted briefs to the United States Supreme Court on individual cases as well as amicus curia.
Beyond representing individual clients and their families who have been injured and wrongfully killed, Kenny is consistently called upon by his peers to work in partnership to represent clients whose cases are of extreme importance.
Kenny’s firm is set apart by the method by which his clients’ cases are handled. All lawyers are jointly assigned to work every case along with experienced paralegals and support staff. At all times, Kenny’s firm limits number of cases which are selected to be vigorously handled; typically, the firm’s caseload remains less than 50 – total – not per lawyer.
Kenny has also handled numerous class actions, including being appointed by courts as lead or co-lead counsel representing hundreds of class members in state and federal courts resulting in millions of dollars of recoveries.
In addition to advocating for his clients, Kenny is an active arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association International Center for Dispute Resolution – Cruise Line and Seafarer Arbitrator Panel and an arbitrator for the Louisiana State Bar Association’s Lawyer Fee Dispute Panel, having learned arbitration and negotiation skills from attending AAA and Harvard Law Schools’ Program on Negotiation.
In addition, Kenny was appointed as the attorney for the Louisiana State Democratic Party. This was an important position given Louisiana’s party has remained focused on protecting the rights of workers, especially injured workers who have lost the ability to earn a living for their families.
Kenny has also served on the Board of Governors for the Louisiana Association for Justice, a position of great pride. The Louisiana Association for Justice fights daily to protect people from ill practices of the insurance industry who has been found to take every advantage possible to not fully compensate medical expenses, property damages and wages for those who are injured by others – while not at fault.
Kenny also sits on the Board, as treasurer, of the Country Club of Louisiana’s Property owners’ association as well as other corporate boards.
Kenny has been married to Lindi Hooks for more than 25 years and is a proud father of 21-year-old Haleigh Hooks, a current student at Auburn University who looks forward to joining the firm someday.
Kenny spends his free time salt water fishing in Louisiana’s southern marshes and following LSU sports, as well as his membership in the New Orleans Mardi Gras Super-Krewe of Bacchus.
If you would like to speak to Kenny – you can call or text his cell phone at +1 (225) 235-3380, if he cannot help you, he will do his best to find someone who can.
During college at South Eastern Louisiana University (SLU) in Hammond, Louisiana, Kenny was elected as a college of business Student Government Senator, appointed as the Student Government Attorney General, was a four-year rugby player for the university and, during summer breaks, worked as a long-line commercial shark fisherman out of Venice, Louisiana landing thousands of pounds of shark on weekly voyages.
After graduating with finance and management degrees from SLU, Kenny decided to attend the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University. In addition to studying, he took jobs clerking for law professors and various lobbying groups, including the Louisiana Association for Justice, the state’s largest most effective advocacy group protecting people’s rights.
With a working-class background, diligent work ethic and love of all things associated with the water, Kenny decided to dedicate his career to specialize his practice on helping the injured in addition to maritime personal injury, protecting workers rights and ensuring seamen were paid full wages when due.
In addition to that focus, Kenny has built a lifetime of success in and out of the courtroom advocating for individuals and families injured by others – on and off the water. Some of his largest victories have resulted from automobile collisions, plant explosions, product liability burn cases and brain damage litigation where he has used brain diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) with vast success.
Kenny has also devoted a large part of his professional life to teaching the law at Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge as an adjunct professor. Spending 15 years teaching Personal Injury on the water and Admiralty law has helped him learn to deeply understand legal reasoning and statutory interpretation.
Helping form young legal minds to “think like a lawyer” has given him clear insight into how to explain the facts and apply those facts of the law to non-lawyers and those of us who are called upon to sit on a jury to judge our peers. Kenny has also taught class for Tulane University Law School in Rhodes, Greece co-sponsored with Aegean Institute of the Law of the Sea and Maritime Law and a visiting lecturer at Marmara University at Istanbul, Turkey.
Kenny is one of the lawyers appointed to represent the International Transport Workers Federation, the world's largest federation of labor unions handling seafarer cases around the world. In representing foreign seafarers, Kenny has traveled extensively throughout the United States, and worldwide to countries such as the Philippines, Thailand, Canada, India, Peru, Ukraine, Chile, Guatemala, Australia, Greece and Panama.
Kenny has been admitted to practice throughout the United States on a pro hac vice basis in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, California, and is admitted to practice in all state and federal courts of Louisiana, the Federal Court of Washington D.C. and United States Supreme Court. Kenny has authored and co-authored legal articles, lectured and submitted briefs to the United States Supreme Court on individual cases as well as amicus curia.
Beyond representing individual clients and their families who have been injured and wrongfully killed, Kenny is consistently called upon by his peers to work in partnership to represent clients whose cases are of extreme importance.
Kenny’s firm is set apart by the method by which his clients’ cases are handled. All lawyers are jointly assigned to work every case along with experienced paralegals and support staff. At all times, Kenny’s firm limits number of cases which are selected to be vigorously handled; typically, the firm’s caseload remains less than 50 – total – not per lawyer.
Kenny has also handled numerous class actions, including being appointed by courts as lead or co-lead counsel representing hundreds of class members in state and federal courts resulting in millions of dollars of recoveries.
In addition to advocating for his clients, Kenny is an active arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association International Center for Dispute Resolution – Cruise Line and Seafarer Arbitrator Panel and an arbitrator for the Louisiana State Bar Association’s Lawyer Fee Dispute Panel, having learned arbitration and negotiation skills from attending AAA and Harvard Law Schools’ Program on Negotiation.
In addition, Kenny was appointed as the attorney for the Louisiana State Democratic Party. This was an important position given Louisiana’s party has remained focused on protecting the rights of workers, especially injured workers who have lost the ability to earn a living for their families.
Kenny has also served on the Board of Governors for the Louisiana Association for Justice, a position of great pride. The Louisiana Association for Justice fights daily to protect people from ill practices of the insurance industry who has been found to take every advantage possible to not fully compensate medical expenses, property damages and wages for those who are injured by others – while not at fault.
Kenny also sits on the Board, as treasurer, of the Country Club of Louisiana’s Property owners’ association as well as other corporate boards.
Kenny has been married to Lindi Hooks for more than 25 years and is a proud father of 21-year-old Haleigh Hooks, a current student at Auburn University who looks forward to joining the firm someday.
Kenny spends his free time salt water fishing in Louisiana’s southern marshes and following LSU sports, as well as his membership in the New Orleans Mardi Gras Super-Krewe of Bacchus.
If you would like to speak to Kenny – you can call or text his cell phone at +1 (225) 235-3380, if he cannot help you, he will do his best to find someone who can.
Litigation Percentage
- 100% of Practice Devoted to Litigation
Bar Admissions
- All Louisiana State Courts
- U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana
- U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana
- U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana
- U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
- U.S. Court of Appeals for 5th Circuit
- U.S. Supreme Court
Education
- Louisiana State University Law Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
- J.D. – May 1997
- Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond, Louisiana
- B.S. summa cum laude – December 1993
- Honors: Summa Cum Laude
- Major: Finance
- Minor: Management
Representative Clients
- International Transport Workers’ Federation
Classes/Seminars
- Primer on Maritime Vessel Automated Information Systems, Louisiana Association for Justice
- Louisiana Statutory Immunities, Louisiana Association for Justice
- Admiralty and Maritime Law (Second and Third-year law students), Southern Louisiana University Law Center, Baton Rouge, LA
- Maritime Personal Injury (Second and Third-year law students), Southern Louisiana University Law Center, Baton Rouge, LA
- Primer on United States Maritime Law, Forum Selection and Forum Non- Conveniens, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey
Honors and Awards
- Louisiana Super Lawyers 2011 – 2012
Professional Associations and Memberships
- American Association for Justice, Admiralty Executive Committee
- Louisiana Association for Justice, Board of Governors
- American Bar Association, Member
- Baton Rouge Bar Association, Member
- Louisiana Democratic Party, Executive Committee
Areas of Practice
- 100% Personal and Business Injuries
- Brain and Spinal Cord Injuries
- Burn and Wrongful Death
- Medical Errors
- Jones Act
- Maritime Injuries
- Foreign Seaman
- Unpaid Seaman Wages
Past Employment Positions
- Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Research Assistant to Distinguished Professor Lucy McGough
- Louisiana Bankers Association, Research Assistant to General Counsel Mary Beth Arceneaux, 1995 – 1996
- Louisiana Trial Lawyers Association (now Louisiana Association for Justice), Research Assistant, 1996 – 1997
Pro Bono Activities
- American Red Cross, 2009 – Present
Previous Names
- Kenny Hooks, January 1, 2011
