Seasoned policyholder advocate achieving multimillion-dollar recoveries and developing permanent solutions for mass tort liabilities
Andy is a member of the firm’s Insurance Recovery Group. For over 20 years, he has represented policyholders in disputes under a variety of insurance coverages, including general liability, excess liability, directors’ and officers’ liability, employers’ liability, employment practices liability, crime and employee defalcation, and cyber liability. In this role, he has helped clients recover hundreds of millions of dollars of insurance coverage through litigation and the negotiation of insurance claim settlements, policy buy-backs, and coverage-in-place agreements. He also has counseled clients on contractual indemnification and other means of risk management beyond traditional commercial insurance, and has advised clients on insurance and risk management issues arising in corporate mergers and acquisitions.
A special focus of Andy’s practice has been representing clients seeking to permanently resolve various types of mass tort liabilities. Andy has extensive experience developing solutions for these situations using chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code and state dissolution statutes, and pursuing and utilizing insurance coverage to fund those solutions. As part of that work, Andy has provided clients with strategic advice on, among other things, corporate restructuring, statutory process and procedure, the scope of relief available under various reorganization or dissolution regimes, and intersecting insurance recovery issues. He has litigated a variety of insurance-specific matters that frequently arise in mass tort chapter 11 bankruptcy cases, and has served as trial counsel for debtors in contested proceedings on the confirmation of mass tort chapter 11 plans.
Additionally, Andy has represented clients in a host of complex commercial disputes that have not involved insurance coverage. In this role, he has litigated and tried cases involving claims for breach of contract and business-related torts. He also has represented clients in the defense of claims arising from mass disaster events, including those based on novel theories of sponsor and promoter liability, and tort claims based on various theories of derivative liability, including corporate successorship, veil piercing, and de facto merger.
Experience
Representative matters
In re Cyprus Mines Corporation, No. 21-10398 (LSS) (Bankr. D. Del.): Counsel for the debtor in a chapter 11 case involving a plan that provided for the creation of a § 524(g) trust for claims asserting talc- and asbestos-related liabilities. Served as debtor’s trial counsel during evidentiary hearings on plan confirmation in April 2025. Litigated insurer objections to a variety of elements of the debtor’s chapter 11 reorganization plan.
In re Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre, No. 20-12345 (MG) (Bankr. S.D.N.Y.): Insurance coverage counsel to the debtor in a chapter 11 case involving a plan that provided for the creation of a trust to resolve sexual abuse claims. Assisted the debtor with resolving insurer opposition to plan confirmation and negotiating and drafting settlement agreements with all objecting insurers, which paved the way to plan confirmation in December 2024.
In re ON Marine Services Company, LLC, No. 20-20007-CMB (Bankr. W.D. Pa.): Counsel for the debtor in a liquidating chapter 11 case that resolved all existing asbestos claims against the debtor. Negotiated settlements with the debtor’s insurers that funded both the administration of the chapter 11 case and the asbestos claims resolution trust that was created through the case.
Representative Experience
In re Cyprus Mines Corporation, No. 21-10398 (LSS) (Bankr. D. Del.): Counsel for the debtor in a chapter 11 case involving a plan that provided for the creation of a § 524(g) trust for claims asserting talc- and asbestos-related liabilities. Served as debtor’s trial counsel during evidentiary hearings on plan confirmation in April 2025. Litigated insurer objections to a variety of elements of the debtor’s chapter 11 reorganization plan.
In re Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre, No. 20-12345 (MG) (Bankr. S.D.N.Y.): Insurance coverage counsel to the debtor in a chapter 11 case involving a plan that provided for the creation of a trust to resolve sexual abuse claims. Assisted the debtor with resolving insurer opposition to plan confirmation and negotiating and drafting settlement agreements with all objecting insurers, which paved the way to plan confirmation in December 2024.
In re ON Marine Services Company, LLC, No. 20-20007-CMB (Bankr. W.D. Pa.): Counsel for the debtor in a liquidating chapter 11 case that resolved all existing asbestos claims against the debtor. Negotiated settlements with the debtor’s insurers that funded both the administration of the chapter 11 case and the asbestos claims resolution trust that was created through the case.
In re Purdue Pharma L.P., No. 19-23649 (RDD) (Bankr. S.D.N.Y.): Special insurance coverage counsel for the debtors, manufacturers of opioid painkillers, in one of the largest chapter 11 cases in U.S. history. Tasked with addressing certain insurers’ objections to “insurance neutrality” provisions in the debtors’ chapter 11 plan on the eve of 2021 confirmation hearing. Successfully resolved the objecting insurers’ evidentiary objections for the confirmation hearing. The bankruptcy court rejected the insurers’ “insurance neutrality” objections in confirming the debtors’ 2021 plan. Provided further counsel and assistance to the debtors in resolving insurer objections to confirmation of the debtors’ 2025 chapter 11 plan after case was remanded by the United States Supreme Court.
In re Dravo LLC Subchapter G Dissolution, GD No. 18-10151 (Ct. Comm. Pleas Allegheny Cty., Pa.): Insurance recovery counsel for a dissolved limited liability company. Assisted a dissolved company with recovering proceeds under excess insurance policies to fund the runoff of asbestos claims asserted prior to the statutory bar date as part of a statutory dissolution proceeding under Pennsylvania law.
In re The Fairbanks Company, No. 18-41768-PWB (Bankr. N.D. Ga.): Counsel for the debtor in a chapter 11 case in which the bankruptcy court confirmed a reorganization plan that included a § 524(g) asbestos claims trust. Represented the debtor in litigation with the insurers over the debtor’s claims for insurance coverage and the insurers’ claims against the estate. Negotiated settlements with the objecting insurers that were approved as part of the plan confirmation process and provided funding for the section 524(g) trust.
In re Oakfabco, Inc., No. 15-27062 (Bankr. N.D. Ill.): Counsel for the debtor in a chapter 11 case in which the bankruptcy court confirmed a plan that included a non-§ 524(g) trust to resolve all existing asbestos claims against the debtor and provided for cancellation of the debtor’s corporate existence. Negotiated settlements with the insurers that resolved various issues (including lost policy issues) and litigated the bankruptcy court approval of settlements over objections by asbestos claimants.
In re Rapid-American Corp., No. 13-10687 (DSJ) (Bankr. S.D.N.Y.): Counsel for the debtor in a chapter 11 case in which the bankruptcy court confirmed a plan that included a non-§ 524(g) trust to resolve all existing asbestos claims against the debtor and that provided for cancellation of the debtor’s corporate existence.
In re North American Refractories Co., No. 02-20158-JKF (Bankr. W.D. Pa.) and In re Global Industrial Technologies, No. 02-21626-JKF (Bankr. W.D. Pa.): Counsel for the debtors in two related chapter 11 cases that involved the creation of § 524(g) asbestos trusts with participation by non-debtor third-party former parent entities of the debtors. Litigated with various insurers who objected to the confirmation of the chapter 11 plans and negotiated (and received bankruptcy court approval for) several insurance settlement agreements that funded the reorganization structure. After 11 years of litigation, obtained confirmation of the chapter 11 plan in Global Industrial Technologies for both a § 524(g) trust for asbestos claims and a § 105(a) trust for silica claims.
In re Pittsburgh Corning Corporation, No. 00-22876-JKF (Bankr. W.D. Pa.): Counsel for the debtor in a 16-year chapter 11 case that posed complex issues involving the scope of relief available for non-debtor shareholders of the debtor under §§ 105(a) and 524(g) of the Bankruptcy Code, as well as the nature and viability of insurer objections to plan confirmation. Litigated various issues throughout the case, including confirmation of the chapter 11 plan, district court affirmation of the bankruptcy court’s order confirming the plan under § 524(g), and appeals of confirmation and affirmation orders to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.