**Top of the Class
**
Larry K. Burleigh Sr. of Lafayette has been selected by his peers for inclusion in the 2011 edition of The Best Lawyers in America, joining a distinguished group of attorneys who have now made the prestigious list for 20 years or more.
Originally from Jeanerette, Burleigh began his law practice in Morgan City, where he still has a client base, and relocated his firm to Lafayette in the early 1990s. His specialty is maritime personal injury, automobile and products liability litigation. Burleigh frequently appears as a guest lecturer at seminars and has taught trial tactics at Duke University, Harvard Law School and other universities.
Burleigh is one of only a handful of local attorneys to be consistently named in The Best Lawyers in America in maritime law and personal injury litigation since the esteemed listing was first published 25 years ago. Among other local attorneys named to the 2011 list was Robert J. David Jr., who practices in the areas of labor/employment law and general litigation. David also serves as director of accommodations for the Louisiana Supreme Court's committee on bar admissions.
The annual publication is widely regarded - by both the legal profession and the public - as the definitive guide to legal excellence in the U.S. It compiles lists of outstanding attorneys by conducting exhaustive peer-review surveys in which thousands of leading lawyers confidentially evaluate their peers. Best Lawyers is based on more than 3.1 million detailed evaluations of lawyers. The guide partnered this year with U.S. News & World Report, the leading rankings publication in the U.S. As a result, the Best Lawyers search engine now also appears on USNews.com, which has 7 million unique visitors each month.
No fee or purchase is required to be listed, and the annual, advertisement-free publication has been described by The American Lawyer as "the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice."
**Moving Up
**
The Lafayette office of Business First Bank promoted Eric Marter to senior vice president, commercial lending. A UL Lafayette graduate, Marter has almost two decades of experience in commercial lending and relationship banking. He is a member of the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce's Finance Committee, a board member of Festival International de Louisiane since 2007 and a graduate of Leadership Lafayette XVIII.
**Event
**
The 2010 LAGCOE Open Golf Tournament is Monday, Oct. 25, at Oakbourne Country Club. The industry will celebrate the LAGCOE off-year by playing one of two tee times in the 4th annual tournament, a four-man scramble. There will be a player reception following each flight, along with food and drinks on the course. Register at http://register.loga.la. For more info or to secure a sponsorship, contact Ben Broussard at [email protected] or (337) 278-6240.
Submit press releases and photos for inclusion in "People and Flashes" to Leslie Turk at
[email protected].