Andrew L. Reissaus - Washington, DC

Andrew L. Reissaus specializes in the defense of all stages of complex litigation that requires an in-depth grasp of cutting-edge scientific, engineering, and medical insights. His experience and litigation practice focus on pharmaceutical products liability cases, construction and engineering disputes, and toxic tort matters.

Mr. Reissaus represents Firm clients in multiple federal multidistrict litigations and state court consolidated proceedings consisting of hundreds and thousands of product liability claims associated with pharmaceutical products, and has advised and represented clients at all phases of litigation, from pre-litigation evaluations and extending through discovery and trial. He also counsels Firm clients on pharmaceutical regulatory compliance/enforcement issues arising under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, either as stand-alone projects or as an adjunct to the defense of pharmaceutical product liability litigation and corporate acquisitions/product line due diligence.

Mr. Reissaus’s litigation practice includes representing construction and engineering clients in complex projects and multi-party disputes and at trial. He served as a trial team member in court for a three-and-a-half week, multi-party complex engineering and construction trial. He works with experts in the engineering and construction fields, defending his clients’ experts at deposition and examining his clients’ experts and opposing experts at deposition and at trial.

Mr. Reissaus assists Firm clients facing actual and anticipated toxic tort matters associated with the industrial use of chemicals and the manufacturing of consumer products, and advises clients on the risk of environmental, personal injury, and products liability litigation arising from chemical use, consumer and industrial products, proposed environmental legislation, and regulatory changes. At all phases of this work, spanning pre-litigation risk assessments to trial case preparation, he routinely consults with leading scientific and medical experts to develop and implement scientific evidence-based defenses and litigation strategies.

Mr. Reissaus also supports clients’ strategic growth plans by assessing litigation risk associated with new products and potential corporate acquisitions, both domestic and international. He advises and represents U.S. and international companies on export controls, security clearances, U.S. and European economic sanctions, and requirements related to foreign direct investment, including compliance with U.S. Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) regulations and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

His experience spans all phases of litigation including trial. Mr. Reissaus develops and implements strategies to ensure clients’ cases are heard in appropriate venues in federal court; coordinates corporate document collection, review, and production; prepares and defends corporate representatives at their depositions; deposes plaintiffs, fact witnesses, including treating physicians, and expert witnesses, and briefs and argues Daubert, discovery, and evidentiary motions. He has also identified and developed defenses that have resulted in successful dispositive motions practice on a broad variety of grounds, including general and specific medical causation, proximate causation when there was no evidence that additional or different warnings would have prevented plaintiff’s alleged injury, judicial estoppel where plaintiff failed to disclose bankruptcy proceedings, res judicata where plaintiff attempted to file a second case about the same product, and lack of standing where plaintiff failed to obtain proper court approval to proceed with the lawsuit.

Mr. Reissaus is named in the 2019 Washington, DC edition of Super Lawyers as a Rising Star, as he was in 2018. He participates in the Firm’s pro bono program, including successfully representing clients in immigration, family law, and landlord/tenant disputes. While in law school, he was a Member of The George Washington International Law Review and was a recipient of the Henry R. Berger Award For Excellence In Tort Law.