Andrew J. Wronski is a trial lawyer with more than 25 years of experience working closely with clients to confront complex disputes that disrupt business, cause stress, and generate commercial and financial uncertainty. He is the managing partner of the firm’s Milwaukee office, chair of the firm’s Manufacturing Sector, and former vice chair of the firm’s Litigation Department. Andy is a member the Business Litigation & Dispute Resolution and Securities Enforcement & Litigation Practices.
Andy is highly skilled in assessing and managing risk by proposing creative, practical, and cost-effective dispute resolution strategies, and where business resolutions prove elusive, he pursues the client’s legal, business, and strategic goals through litigation. He places equal emphasis on proactive, front-end counseling and risk avoidance.
Litigation and Dispute Resolution
Andy primarily focuses his practice on complex litigation and trial work, representing corporate and manufacturing clients involved in sophisticated, high-stakes commercial and financial disputes. He is particularly experienced in litigating complex contractual and supply-chain disputes as well as claims of commercial and financial fraud, including claims asserted under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), shareholder class actions (particularly in the M&A context), post-closing M&A disputes (including purchase-price and working capital adjustments), claims under the Uniform Commercial Code, distribution and manufacturing agreement disputes, and trade secret claims, among others.
Andy’s practice is national in scope. He regularly litigates, tries, and arbitrates cases across the country. However, having practiced in the State of Wisconsin for 25 years, Andy is uniquely positioned to assist clients with issues and disputes within the state — he has extensive litigation and trial experience in both state and federal courts across Wisconsin. In addition, Andy is a former president and director of the Milwaukee Bar Association and an active member of the Eastern District of Wisconsin Bar Association and the Seventh Circuit Bar Association.
Sports Industry Counseling and Litigation
Andy often brings his litigation, counseling, and trial experience to bear in matters involving professional and collegiate athletics as a member of the firm’s Sports Industry Team (2015 U.S. News – Best Lawyers® “Best Law Firms” nationally ranked Tier 1 practice). His sports litigation experience includes matters involving collegiate conference realignment, professional franchise relocation, sponsorship disputes, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Major League Baseball player salary arbitration.
He has developed significant experience with respect to the legal and business issues confronting professional sports organizations, and he counsels sports industry clients, including the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club, on a wide variety of legal matters, including facility and ancillary development, franchise acquisition, regulatory compliance, sponsorship and naming rights agreements, ticketing issues, concession and other partnerships, and media rights.
Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility
Andy serves as one of Foley’s professional responsibility partners and counsels firm lawyers and clients through complex ethical and professional responsibility issues. He brings that judgment and experience to his day-to-day practice as well, serving as a trusted advisor to clients on all manner of business and strategic issues. Andy speaks frequently on ethics and professional responsibility.
Andy has served as trial counsel in a wide of variety of commercial matters over his 30-year career, successfully trying jury cases in federal and state courts while representing plaintiffs and defendants alike. Andy employs extensive jury research and mock trial tools to refine key trial themes and maximize his personal connection with jurors — no matter the context or venue. Andy’s everyman style makes him equally comfortable and effective as the plaintiff’s first chair, reflected in a recent $1 million punitive damages award won for an individual client in Wisconsin state court and a $17.4 million RICO verdict secured for a major financial institution in federal court, or the defendant’s first chair, as shown by complete defense verdicts in a $20 million state law distribution dispute. Andy also has extensive experience trying bench trials and arbitration cases, including many successful Major League Baseball salary arbitration matters. In “The Unique Game of Baseball Arbitration,” Andy detailed how he brings key tactics developed in successfully trying these unique disputes to bear when trying cases in a traditional courtroom. Whatever the venue, an intent focus on key messages, effective storytelling, simple and plain-spoken terminology, and the confidence to “pick his battles” and focus on winning issues has brought Andy great success in establishing himself as the “truth-teller” in the courtroom and earned him invaluable credibility with judges and juries — and that leads to winning verdicts.
Awards and Recognition
- Named to BizTimes Milwaukee’s 2024 Class of Notable Leaders in Law (May 2024)
- Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business
- Litigation: General Commercial (2021-2024)
- The Best Lawyers in America® in the fields of:
- Bet-the-Company Litigation (2022-2024)
- Commercial Litigation (2013-2024)
- Litigation – Banking and Finance (2013-2023)
- Litigation – Bankruptcy (2013-2023)
- Best Lawyers® Litigation – Bankruptcy “Lawyer of the Year” in Milwaukee (2020, 2024)
- Benchmark Litigation, “Future Litigation Star” (2018)
- Milwaukee Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” (2009)
- BTI Client Service All-Star (2024)