Luke E. Sims
Retired Partner
Luke E. Sims is a retired partner with Foley & Lardner LLP, where he was a member of the firm’s Transactional & Securities Practice. He was a corporate lawyer whose practice concentrated on acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, and securities law matters. Luke had extensive experience in all aspects of mergers and acquisitions—particularly leveraged buyouts—including the structuring, negotiation, and financing of acquisitions and dispositions of both private and publicly held companies.
Luke was licensed to practice law in Wisconsin and before the United States Supreme Court, and he was a member of the Milwaukee and Wisconsin Bar Associations.
Luke was Peer Review Rated 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 from 2008 to 2010. For many years, he was 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 was also 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 covered securities laws, mergers and acquisitions, tender offers and takeover defense, and corporate law generally. During this period, the practice group included approximately 80 to 100 lawyers and paralegals.
Luke served as a director of LaCrosse Footwear, Inc. (Nasdaq NMS: BOOT) from 1985 to 2009. He also served as a director of Eagle Capital Growth Fund, Inc. (NYSE Amex: GRF) and Wilson‑Hurd Mfg. Co.
Among his charitable, church, and community activities, Luke coached the Shorewood Astros Little League baseball teams from 1991 to 1993.
Luke joined Foley in 1976 after receiving his undergraduate degree (A.B. 1972) and his law degree (J.D. 1976) from 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.