Andrew C. Nichols

Andrew Nichols focuses on appellate proceedings and critical, high-stakes motions at the trial level. As a partner at an Am Law 100 firm, Andrew handled commercial and constitutional litigation, helping to build an appellate and critical motions practice that Legal 500 called “outstanding in all respects.” He’s been named a “top legal lion” by Law360 for his work in the U.S. Supreme Court, where he regularly appears. A skilled oral and written advocate, Andrew has extensive experience in mass torts, intellectual-property litigation, and business disputes of all kinds.

Andrew has often been called upon to handle high-profile matters in the U.S. Supreme Court and federal circuit courts. Recently, he’s appeared in multiple Supreme Court cases involving internet regulation, and appeared on C-SPAN to preview oral arguments in cases involving Google and Twitter (now called X). He was counsel to the world’s largest generic drug maker in the Supreme Court’s first case interpreting the “on-sale” bar of the America Invents Act, which resulted in a 9-0 victory for the client in 2019. In 2012, he represented a leading drug maker in the Supreme Court’s first case involving the competition provisions of the Hatch-Waxman Act—which also resulted in a 9-0 win. He’s also been called on to argue cases for leading national corporations and a sovereign state—involving issues from preemption to contract interpretation—from the Ninth Circuit to the D.C. Circuit.

Andrew has long experience handling critical motions in the trial courts—for example, obtaining a precedent-setting award of discovery featured in Global Arbitration Review. He won reconsideration in a $1 billion trade-secrets case involving one of the world’s largest car manufacturers, won dismissal of nearly all claims in a nationally publicized class action against a Fortune 50 manufacturer, and served as lead motions counsel in a $600 million securities-fraud case, which settled favorably. In 2020, Andrew served as appellate-and-motions counsel in a ten-day bench trial for a Fortune 500 company in a $225 million breach-of-contract case. The client prevailed across the board.

Sharing his expertise, Andrew regularly publishes on appellate and critical motions practice. For example, he authored co-authored an article in Bloomberg Law entitled Ten Keys to Getting the Most Out of Your Moot Court and Five Questions to Ask Before Filing that Critical Motion. In 2019, he was nominated for a Law360 Burton Award for his article entitled, Gaining an Edge: Three Principles for Strengthening any Brief or Email, published in Certworthy.

Andrew served as a law clerk to the Hon. D. Brooks Smith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He also worked for seven years on Capitol Hill, serving as legislative director for a member of Congress and as a legislative aide for a U.S. senator.

Andrew received a B.A. in International Politics, with honors, from Pennsylvania State University in 1995, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He received a J.D. in 2004 from Georgetown University Law Center. He’s been married for twenty-five years and has four children and one grandchild.