Andrea E. Neuman

Environmental and complex litigation

Neuman firmly staked her claim this year as an expert in getting to the bottom of foreign plaintiffs' potentially trumped up claims against major multinationals. Fresh off her victories representing Dole Food Co. against lawsuits that were found to be filed by bogus plaintiffs based on fraudulent testimony, Neuman is leading the effort to defend Chevron Corp. in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit accusing the oil company of causing environmental damage in the Lago Agrio region of Ecuador's rain forest. She has deposed a key former expert witness for the Ecuadorian plaintiffs, who testified that reports he supposedly authored and submitted in Ecuadorian court were fraudulent. Neuman also is defending Dole again against allegations from south of the border: in this case that the food giant funded and directed the activities of Colombian paramilitary groups that were responsible for more than 100 deaths in connection with that country's long-running internal conflict.