Lance Unglesby is a native of Baton Rouge. He received his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Mississippi and earned his law degree from Loyola Law School. Lance joined the Unglesby Law Firm in 2009 and has since been recognized in the “Top 40 Under 40” by the National Trial Lawyers Association. Prior to joining the Unglesby Law Firm, Lance worked as a public defender at the Orleans Public Defenders in New Orleans. During that time, the office received the 2009 Frederick Douglass Human Rights Award from the Southern Center for Human Rights. Working with dedicated and talented defense teams, Lance led and won many complex criminal cases. This included two murder acquittals one argued as a misidentification and one as a self-defense claim. His work has been featured on Dateline NBC, CNBC, Gambit Weekly, the Times-Picayune, and local radio.
Since joining Unglesby Law Firm, Lance has had a series of impressive results – an acquittal in an armed robbery trial, a reduction to manslaughter in a spousal murder trial, a certification of a class-action in a toxic tort case, and over a two million-dollar settlement in a wrongful death action.
Today, Lance focuses primarily on complex civil litigation, commercial disputes, pharmaceutical and medical device defects, and catastrophic injuries, as well as white collar criminal defense.
Lance has developed a uniquely modern approach to eliciting direct testimony in civil litigation, highlighting structured stories to advance trial narratives. This approach has inspired new understandings of a jury’s formulation of damages, and targets creating a foundation for success on appeal.
Much of Lance’s white-collar practice focuses on the aggressive representation of a wide range of different health care providers. Current health care laws are both enormously complex and far reaching, leaving vast amounts of gray areas that both State and Federal authorities have used to target entities for civil fines and criminal prosecution. Lance has pioneered new and innovative ways of defending health care companies, with an emphasis on thorough early internal investigations as a means of creating effective shields against both civil and criminal liability.
While working with the Unglesby Law Firm, Lance has stayed connected to the community and handled eight death penalty cases with the Capital Defense Project of Southeast Louisiana. All eight cases successfully ended with non-capital resolutions. During this time, Lance worked with some of the preeminent mental health experts in the country. Through this work, Lance was trained in the Colorado method of voir dire and jury selection, a technique centered on empowering juries to vote consistent with their convictions.
Lance is licensed to practice law in Louisiana, admitted to all Louisiana federal courts, and has been admitted pro hac vice to practice in federal courts in South Carolina, Oklahoma and Wisconsin.
