Andrew is experienced in complex personal injury and product liability cases and class actions. He was formerly an associate at Slater & Gordon, where he had an asbestos practice and was heavily involved in tobacco litigation including McCabe v British American Tobacco and Laurie v the Commonwealth and British American Tobacco. For his work on the McCabe case he was nominated for the Australian Lawyers Alliance’s Lawyer of the Year Award (formerly the Australian Plaintiff Lawyers Association), and also done pro bono work for the Union for International Cancer Control as an expert observer on the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control expert group on Art 19 'Loability'.
In addition to briefs on asbestos related matters, Andrew also appeared on behalf of Lynette Rowe in the thalidomide class action against the German manufacturer and Australian distributor of thalidomide, successfully defending a forum non conveniens application brought by the German manufacturer. Since 2011 Andrew has acted as Special Counsel for the Australian Government in defence of its tobacco plain packaging laws against constitutional, investor state arbitration and WTO challenges.
Andrew is also a lecturer at the University of Oxford. He is currently Associate Professor of Civil Procedure at the law faculty and a fellow of law at Mansfield College. He has previously taught contract and tort to University College and New College. He has a doctorate from Oxford on legal professional privilege and obtained a distinction on the BCL in 2005. He has lectured and published on a range of topics including class actions, LPP, discovery, costs and funding, non-compliance with court orders, bias and interim injunctions. Andrew’s Oxford profile can be found at http://www.law.ox.ac.uk/profile/andrew.higgins
Details of Andrew's book on client legal privilege, published by Oxford University Press in 2014, can be found here