Dye, Valerie L.

Andy Dwyer has been suing employers for harassment, discrimination and retaliation since 1996. He has built a practice focused on trial and appellate litigation that aggressively advances the rights of employees.

Andy graduated from Harvard in 1984, and graduated cum laude from the New York University School of Law in 1990.

After law school, Andy clerked for the Hon. Dickinson R. Debevoise, U.S.D.J., a United States District Court Judge for the District of New Jersey. He then worked for the National Office of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Law & Policy. This gave Andy a breadth of experience litigating constitutional and civil rights cases in state and federal courts around the country, including the United States Supreme Court. Andy worked on several precedent setting cases, including Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992). From 1992 through 1995, Andy worked at South Brooklyn Legal Services, gaining extensive trial experience representing tenants against their landlords.

Since 1996, Andy has used his skills and experience as a trial and appellate advocate to represent employees against their employers, in cases involving claims of harassment, discrimination and retaliation. He has tried to verdict cases involving diverse claims, including sexual harassment, age discrimination, whistleblowing, race discrimination, denial of tenure, gender and national origin discrimination, failure to accommodate an employee's handicap and breach of contract. He has argued cases at all levels of the New Jersey courts, including the New Jersey Supreme Court, that have set precedents in several areas of employment law, including compelled arbitration, taxation of damages, psychiatric exams of plaintiffs and punitive damages. Because of their high profile nature, many of these cases have attracted media attention.

Because of his background and experience as a litigator, Andy has periodically been asked to become involved in significant cases outside the area of employment law. For example, Andy was brought in as co-counsel for the plaintiff in the United States Supreme Court in Gasperini v. Center for Humanities, Inc., 518 U.S. 415 (1996), which established the extent to which federal appellate courts can review jury verdicts under the Seventh Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. In the Arbitration re the Waterfront South Redevelopment Plan, Andy was hired by the City Council of the City of Camden as private counsel in a dispute against the administration over a redevelopment plan. Andy was also retained as an expert witness in Heusser v. New Jersey Highway Authority , where the Director of the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights adopted Andy's opinions on the proper hourly rates for attorneys fees in a handicap discrimination case.

Andy has given presentations on issues in employment litigation to attorneys in the American Association for Justice, the National Employment Lawyers Association, and the New Jersey Office of Protection & Advocacy. He has published articles on employment law in the New Jersey Law Journal and the New Jersey Lawyer.

Andy is admitted to practice before the States of New Jersey and New York. He is also admitted to practice before the United States District Courts for the District of New Jersey, the Southern District of New York, and the Eastern District of New York. He is also admitted to practice before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second, Third and Fifth Circuits, and before the United States Supreme Court. He has practiced before all those courts, but he has also practiced on a pro hac vice basis before courts in California, Tennessee, Mississippi, Utah, Guam, Kentucky and the District of Columbia.