Andrew D. Carpenter is a litigator who focuses on complex litigation. His goal in every case is to create innovative and effective solutions for his clients through incisive analysis, effective writing, and persuasive advocacy.
He believes that a complete mastery of the law and the facts, combined with active client communication, is the best way to maximize the odds of success. Andy’s expertise is based on battle-tested courtroom experience; since 2009, Andy has spent an average of more than 60 days a year defending his clients in trial.
His cases range from consumer products to medical devices to large-scale property class actions. When he’s not defending his clients, Andy stays abreast of current developments as one of the principal authors of the Missouri and Kansas Class Action Blog. In his spare time, he writes fiction and is an adjunct professor of Products Liability at the University of Kansas School of Law.
Andy offers the type of expertise that comes from more than twenty years of defending clients such as Philip Morris, Union Pacific, Boston Scientific, DuPont, Zimmer Orthopedics, Lorillard Tobacco Company and The Coca-Cola Company in challenging litigation across the United States:
- Complex Briefing, Appeals and Legal Strategy: From 2008 to 2012, Andy directed the Lorillard Tobacco Company Legal Issues Group, which wrote and argued all major briefs and motions and coordinated appeals for the more than 8,000 Engle-progeny cases pending in Florida. Andy was also responsible for directing and coordinating Lorillard’s legal strategy in this litigation, as well as all motions and legal issues at trial. Andy wrote and argued many of the key motions and briefs for Lorillard in this litigation. Since 2012, Andy has represented Philip Morris USA Inc., as its legal issues counsel in numerous Engle-progeny trials. Since 2015, Andy has represented Union Pacific in a series of putative class actions involving property rights claims to the railroad’s right-of-way that have resulted in a perfect record of denied motions for class certification.
- Class Actions and MDLs: From 2005 to 2008, Andy represented Boston Scientific Corp./Guidant in MDL No. 1708, In re Guidant Corp. Implantable Defibrillators Product Liability Litigation, consisting of nearly 2,000 cases and 74 putative class actions cases pending in the U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota. Andy was responsible for all legal issues and discovery briefing in that MDL. He developed and argued many of the key dispositive and evidentiary motions for the MDL representative lead cases, resulting in several important rulings, including a key choice-of-law victory. He also developed and argued the motion that resulted in the dismissal of all third-party payor claims in the MDL. This litigation was ultimately resolved on terms favorable to Boston Scientific. Andy was also responsible for overseeing the defense of Guidant’s Canadian litigation.
- eDiscovery and Class Action MDLs: From 2005 to 2008, Andy served DuPont as its class action and eDiscovery counsel in MDL No. 1733, In re Teflon Products Liability Litigation, consisting of 22 putative class actions pending in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Iowa. In addition to helping coordinate the defense group’s class certification defense, Andy was responsible for DuPont’s document production, privilege logs and eDiscovery issues. The district court denied class certification in every case and rejected each of the plaintiffs’ motions for discovery sanctions.
- Product Liability Class Actions: Andy has also successfully defended national clients such as Smithfield Foods, The Coca-Cola Company, Smith & Wesson, Smucker’s, Mitsubishi and Cingular Wireless in class action litigation.
- Class Action Settlements: Andy has helped negotiate, brief, implement and oversee the successful resolution of several national cases, including the $1.1 billion resolution of MDL No. 1401, In re Sulzer Orthopedics, Inc. Hip Prosthesis and Knee Prosthesis Liability Litigation, as well as the class resolution of multiple nationwide product liability classes for Mitsubishi Motors and DaimlerChrysler, and a nationwide employment class for Mutual of Omaha.
- Complex Product Liability Defense: As a part of Shook’s Global Product Liability Group, Andy has successfully represented both Philip Morris and Lorillard Tobacco Company in smoking-and-health litigation across the United States, including traditional class actions, third-party payor cost recovery actions, consolidated claims by individual smokers and individual smoking-and-health cases. Beginning as an associate, Andy has been able to learn every aspect of defending a complex case from the ground up, beginning with the Broin flight attendant class action trial in Miami in 1997, the Falise/Johns-Manville Settlement Trust cost recovery trial in New York in 2000, and the Coolidge tobacco trial in Riverside, California, in 2003.
- Appellate Advocacy: Andy has successfully briefed and argued appeals before courts such as the U.S. Courts of Appeal, Sixth and Eighth Circuits, as well as in state appellate courts, including Missouri and Connecticut. Andy also drafted the winning petition in Coca-Cola v. Pennington that resulted in a writ by the Missouri Supreme Court vacating the trial court’s certification of a statewide consumer class against Coca-Cola
Education:
- J.D., University of Kansas School of Law, 1994
- Order of the Coif
- Kansas Law Review, Associate Editor
- B.A., magna cum laude, University of Kansas, 1991
Bar Admissions:
- Kansas
- Missouri
- U.S. District Court, District of Kansas
- U.S. District Court, Western District of Missouri
- U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
Cost
Rate : $$$