District Attorney Montgomery Names Civil Division Chief

District Attorney Warren Montgomery announced Wednesday that he has named Assistant District Attorney Cary Menard as Chief of the Civil Division, responsible for leading the department whose newly enhanced duties include representing St. Tammany Parish Government.

The Louisiana Supreme Court resolved two years of litigation on June 27, when it confirmed that the Parish’s Home Rule Charter requires the District Attorney to serve as legal advisor to Parish Government. Montgomery had filed suit against the Parish in 2016, when officials rejected his efforts to fulfill his responsibility.

“Now that the issue has been settled, it is time to move forward,” Montgomery said. “I have complete confidence in Cary’s abilities, based upon his background, vast experience, and his time here in this office. The Parish Government will be well advised and well represented.”

Menard joined the Montgomery Administration in May 2016 as an Assistant District Attorney in the Civil Division, where he advised boards and commissions in St. Tammany and Washington parishes and handled the office’s civil litigation. Before that, he worked for the State Attorney General’s Office as Director of the Complex Litigation Unit.



Menard received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Louisiana Lafayette, where he was named “Outstanding Male Graduate,” and he graduated from LSU Law School in 1979. He worked as a private attorney until 1991, when he accepted a dream job that enabled him to merge his legal career and his love of drag racing. That job required him to relocate to California to help build the new legal department for the National Hot Rod Association. Menard was named Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs and spent 14 years in an ever-expanding job. Menard not only directed the daily activities of general counsel and supervised contract counsel retained for litigation, but he also exercised management oversight of seven company-owned racetrack facilities in five states. He had direct operational and budgetary responsibility of $15 million with 22 direct reports and 119 indirect reports.

In 2003, Menard, a former NHRA race team owner and licensed dragster driver, was inducted into the NHRA Drag Racing Hall of Fame-South Central Region.

After his retirement from the National Hot Rod Association, Menard opened a mortgage company in Los Angeles and later founded a moving company in Maui, Hawaii, where he lived for four years before returning to the mainland.

In January 2018, Menard was promoted to Director of the District Attorney’s Pre-Trial Intervention Program (also known as Diversion). He lives in Mandeville with his wife, Melody, and he is the father of two adult children. Menard joins two other Chiefs on Montgomery’s Executive Team—Chief of Administration Tony Sanders and Criminal Division Chief Collin Sims.