Silverman, Andrew

Andrew Silverman is an appellate lawyer focusing on high-stakes, precedent-setting cases nationwide. A distinguishing feature of Andrew’s practice is that clients routinely call on him in the trial court to win the case long before the appeal. 

Andrew is skilled brief writer who works on significant motions in the trial court to prevent any resort to appeal by winning the case first. In addition, Andrew specializes in readying cases for appeal by perfecting critical appellate issues and teeing them up in the most favorable posture. Andrew has brought these special skills to bear for some of the world’s largest companies in their most important cases, including for Oracle (against Google and the U.S. Department of Labor), PricewaterhouseCoopers (against MF Global), Gilead Sciences (against relators on behalf of the United States), Synopsys (against Ubiquiti Networks), and the dietary supplement industry (against Amarin Pharmaceuticals). 

Drawing on his years of experience as a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, Andrew collaborates with the trial court team to serve as the point person for law-intensive brief-writing and strategy. In cases where the stakes are so high that an appeal is all but inevitable, Andrew is frequently retained to work on motions to dismiss, preliminary-injunction briefing, and summary-judgment motions. If the case proceeds toward trial, Andrew leads strategizing and all manner of briefing from jury instructions to motions in limine to mid-trial objections and pocket briefs to motions for judgment as a matter of law and motions for a new trial.   

Andrew also has a strong record on appeals, including in major appeals for Oracle (against Google), KBC Bank (against Lazare Kaplan), Dow AgroSciences (against Bayer CropSciences), a former executive of IBM (against IBM), Boiron (as part of a class action settlement), and in the U.S. Supreme Court for a Thai Professor, Supap Kirtsaeng (sued by the publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc.). In appellate cases, Andrew takes pride in collaborating with his client and the trial team to rethink the case from the bottom up, searching for ways to present even the most complicated arguments as plain common sense, and drafting a storytelling version of the case that hooks the reader from the first page. Andrew emphasizes oral argument, working tirelessly to develop themes specifically for oral argument that magnify -- not merely parrot -- the briefing.