Luke E. Sims is a retired partner with Foley & Lardner LLP where he was a member of the firm’s Transactional & Securities Practice. He is a corporate lawyer with concentrations in acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, and securities law matters. He has extensive experience in all aspects of mergers and acquisitions (and particularly leveraged buyouts), including structuring, negotiating and financing acquisitions and dispositions of private and publicly held companies.
Luke is licensed to practice in Wisconsin and before the United States Supreme Court, and is a member of the Milwaukee and Wisconsin Bar Associations.
Luke was Peer Review Rated as AV® Preeminent™, the highest performance rating in Martindale-Hubbell’s peer review rating system and was regularly listed in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Business Lawyers (2008-2010). For many years, he has been selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® in the fields of corporate law, leveraged buyouts and private equity law, mergers and acquisitions law and securities law. He has been selected for inclusion in the 2006-2008 Wisconsin Super Lawyers® lists for his mergers and acquisitions work.
From 1997 through 2004, Luke headed the firm’s national Transactional & Securities Practice, which covers securities laws, mergers and acquisitions, tender offers and takeover defense, and corporate law generally. During this period, the number of lawyers and paralegals in this practice group ranged from approximately 80 to 100 professionals.
Luke was a director of LaCrosse Footwear, Inc. (Nasdaq NMS: BOOT) from 1985 to 2009. He is a director of Eagle Capital Growth Fund, Inc. (NYSE Amex: GRF) and Wilson-Hurd Mfg. Co.
Among other charitable, church and community activities, Luke was coach of the 1991-93 Shorewood Astros Little League baseball teams.
Luke joined Foley in 1976 after receiving his undergraduate (A.B. 1972) and legal education (J.D. 1976) at Georgetown University. While at Georgetown Law School, he was active with the Georgetown Law Journal as a staff member, author, editor, and member of the executive board.