About Andrew Brandt
Andrew Brandt is the associate editor on Super Lawyers‘ staff. He serves as the editor for the Missouri-Kansas, Mountain States, Oklahoma, and Texas Rising Stars magazines, and he additionally writes, fact-checks and proofreads for numerous other Super Lawyers issues (and for the website). He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with degrees in English literature and environmental studies, and his byline has appeared in a variety of places, both online and in print.
Articles written by Andrew Brandt
Raising the Bar
Maureen Reidy Witt stands up for a student’s rightsWhen Ebonie S. was placed in her chair and pushed up to her U-shaped desk, she was surrounded on three sides. Three becomes four if the wooden bar behind her chair, which connected the desk’s left side to its right, was secured with a barrel-bolt lock. In this position, Ebonie could no longer push her chair out from the desk; whether she could even get out—by sliding under or crawling over the bar—was a matter for dispute. “It has been referred to as a restraining desk,” says Maureen …
The ‘Criminalization of Immigration’
‘Destined for death’ in Cambodia, Socheat Chea now helps immigrants make new lives in the U.S.To say that Socheat Chea came to the United States under dire circumstances would be an understatement. In 1975, with the insurgent Khmer Rouge only five days away from taking the capital city of Phnom Penh, the Chea family—whose patriarch was a major in the army—fled Cambodia by helicopter and landed at a makeshift refugee camp on the deck of the USS Okinawa in the Gulf of Thailand. “It was clear that [if we stayed] we would probably be killed,” Chea says, who was 9 at the time. “My …
A Lawyer Like You
Vanessa López Aguilera isn’t afraid to take family law cases to courtVanessa López Aguilera began showing interest in the law around the time most teenagers start getting behind the wheel. But she’d never heard of a lawyer who shared her background. “I honestly felt like this profession was just one that white males entered, so I didn’t pursue it, and didn’t actively think that I could be a lawyer,” she says. “No one like me, that I could tell—as far as female and Hispanic—was a lawyer.” It didn’t stop her forever. After graduating from …
Amendment Done
Amy Richardson fights for same-sex rights in North CarolinaEvery once in a while, a cause comes along that a lawyer can’t ignore. For Amy Richardson, it was a case involving same-sex adoption rights. “I have two young children: a 4-year-old and a 7-year-old,” says the criminal defense attorney at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis in Raleigh. “As a parent, I was really moved into action by the fact that these families just wanted to have equal parental rights for their kids.” In 2012, six same-sex couples filed a single lawsuit in North Carolina …
Digital Media Matters
Charles Marshall works to build a digital dynastySometimes you just need to get your foot in the door. That’s how Charles Marshall went from a volunteer to an outside counsel for digital media needs for presidential candidate John McCain in 2008, and for Mitt Romney in 2012. “I had agreed to volunteer early on, when McCain’s campaign was actually in trouble,” he says. “If you remember when he was an early candidate, his poll numbers weren’t doing very well.” Then McCain won over 33 percent of the vote in the South Carolina …
Troll Roads
Stephen Korniczky conquered a patent troll—and then made it payGrowing up, Stephen Korniczky and his brother were close. They competed against one another in wrestling, and squared off in the semifinals of a national judo competition in 1980. Paul, the elder brother, won. “Our careers are very similar,” Korniczky adds. “We both went to engineering school and then went to law school.” In 2012, the Korniczky brothers again found themselves in a battle, but this time in the courtroom and on the same side. Stephen, an intellectual property attorney at …
The Long Recovery
Ron Karp is still fighting for the victims of the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombing in KenyaTragedy often strikes in a second, but its impact can last for years. When the U.S. Embassy in Kenya was bombed on August 7, 1998, the blast killed 12 Americans and injured almost 4,000 other people. Linked to the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the incident marked one of the first times the names Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were heard by the American public. Four years later, Ron Karp began fighting on behalf of eight of the victims and their families as he sought compensation from Iran and the …
Taking on Trolls
How Stephen C. Hall helps inventor-clients overcome nuisance suitsBig ideas. Steve Hall spends part of his time helping his clients patent them; another portion defending their existing products against infringement claims. That sometimes means doing battle with abusive litigants—otherwise known, not so fondly, as patent trolls. Hall is well prepared for the job. “Before I became a patent attorney, I spent about 10 years or so doing nothing but litigation,” he says. “So I do both: I help people get patents in the patent office, and I represent people …
The Long and Winding Road
Bob Gegios’s six-year battle to try his case“One day I’ll be retired, and I’ll have to think back with pleasant memories about this one. But we’re not quite there yet.” Bob Gegios is talking about Oneok, Inc. v. Learjet, Inc. In 2006, Gegios began representing four Wisconsin businesses, which alleged that they paid an estimated $100 million more for natural gas in 2001 than they did in 2000. Claiming that the spike was due to illegal manipulation of prices, the businesses sued. Nearly a decade later, Gegios is still at it. …
Board Games
Lance Trollop on the challenges facing education in Wisconsin“It’s an interesting balance,” says Lance Trollop of finding equilibrium between his work as a personal injury lawyer at Bremer & Trollop Law Offices and his duties as the president of the Wausau School District Board of Education. “But it is rewarding. … If I didn’t think I was making a difference for the Wausau School District, I would stop.” Trollop, who was raised in Wausau and whose mother was both a teacher and an administrator in the district, was first elected to the …
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