MCCLOSKEY - Key Persons
Andrew M. Akers is an associate at McCloskey, Waring, Waisman & Drury LLP. His practice focuses on advising and assisting insurance companies with respect to coverage issues involving all aspects of general claims handling and resolution, including the investigation and analysis of claims, defense and indemnity obligations, and extra-contractual exposures for complex environmental, construction, advertising injury, and other matters.
Mr. Akers received his B.A. (2009) in History, Minor in Global Studies from University of California, Los Angeles, and his J.D. (2014) from the University of San Diego School of Law. He is a member of the California State Bar.
Andrew R. McCloskey is a founding partner of McCloskey, Waring, Waisman & Drury LLP, a California-based law firm with offices in San Diego and Los Angeles. Mr. McCloskey's practice focuses on advising and representing insurance companies with respect to general insurance coverage and bad faith. Mr. McCloskey has handled numerous complex insurance coverage matters, including litigated and non-litigated claims involving environmental, asbestos non-products, construction delay, construction defect, personal injury, advertising injury, bad faith defense and other insurance-related issues.
Mr. McCloskey is a member of the California, Nevada and Washington bars and has appeared pro hac vice in Florida, Hawaii, Washington, Texas and Wisconsin. He is admitted to practice in numerous appellate and federal courts throughout the country and is an AV-rated attorney by Martindale-Hubbell. Mr. McCloskey received a B.A. in Economics from the University of Connecticut and is a cum laude graduate of the University of San Diego School of Law.
Ashley E. Foote is an associate at McCloskey, Waring, Waisman & Drury LLP. Her practice focuses on advising and assisting insurance companies with respect to coverage issues involving all aspects of general claims handling and resolution, including the investigation and analysis of claims, defense and indemnity obligations, and extra-contractual exposures for complex construction, environmental, advertising injury, and other matters.
Ms. Foote received her B.A. in Political Science (2013) and her B.A. in Criminology, Law and Society (2013) from the University of California, Irvine. As an undergraduate student, Ms. Foote studied abroad at the University of Sydney in Australia. Ms. Foote received her J.D. (2017) with a concentration in Civil Litigation from the University of San Diego School of Law. She is a member of the California State Bar.
During law school, Ms. Foote externed with the Honorable William V. Gallo, at the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. Ms. Foote also served as a Lead Articles Editor for the San Diego Law Review and as a member of the Moot Court Associate Board.
Carmelina M. Forzisi is an associate at McCloskey, Waring, Waisman & Drury LLP. Her practice focuses on advising and assisting insurance companies with respect to coverage issues involving all aspects of general claims handling and resolution, including the investigation and analysis of claims, defense and indemnity obligations, and extra-contractual exposures for complex environmental, construction, advertising injury, and other matters.
Ms. Forzisi received her B.A. (2011) in Criminology, Law and Society; Psychology and Social Behavior; Social Ecology, and a Minor in Educational Studies from University of California, Irvine, and her J.D. (2017, Cum Laude) from the University of Miami School of Law. In law school, Ms. Forzisi was a member of the University of Miami Race and Social Justice Law Review. She is a member of the California and Florida State Bars.
David G. Hackett is Of Counsel with McCloskey, Waring, Waisman & Drury LLP.
Mr. Hackett's practice focuses on representing and advising insurance companies with respect to general insurance coverage and claims handling. Mr. Hackett has handled multiple complex insurance coverage matters in multi-party scenarios, including litigated and non-litigated claims involving construction defect, habitability, wildfires, personal injury, bad faith defense, civil liberty violations, and other insurance-related issues.
Mr. Hackett earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Southern California, where he attended on a R.O.T.C. scholarship. Mr. Hackett served as a line officer in the U.S. Navy, and graduated magna cum laude under a full-scholarship from the California Western School of Law in San Diego, California.
Mr. Hackett was previously a partner with the law firm of Herold & Sager. He is a member of the California State Bar and is admitted to practice in U.S. District Courts in California.
Heather McCloskey is a partner with McCloskey, Waring, Waisman & Drury LLP. Her practice focuses on general business litigation, with an emphasis on intellectual property and contract disputes as well as insurance coverage litigation. Ms. McCloskey has extensive trial experience in state and federal courts, representing her clients in a wide range of civil disputes. Ms. McCloskey also has extensive appellate experience in both state and federal courts, including California Courts of Appeal and the Ninth and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals.
Ms. McCloskey has experience litigating a wide range of issues confronting manufacturers and distributors in the fashion, toy, food and beverage industries, among others. She has litigated disputes ranging from supply chain contract disputes to licensing agreements and infringement of copyright, trademark and trade dress belonging to such entities. Ms. McCloskey has also negotiated and handled disputes relating to celebrity sponsorship agreements, right of publicity disputes, and defamation claims.
Ms. McCloskey was previously a partner with the law firm of Ervin, Cohen & Jessup, LLP in Beverly Hills, California and later became Special Counsel with Sedgwick LLP.
Kathy P. Waring is a founding partner of McCloskey, Waring, Waisman & Drury LLP. Ms. Waring has over 30 years of experience representing insurers in all types of coverage-related issues and claims, including hundreds of coverage litigation matters. Prior to forming her own firm with her longtime colleagues John L. Riedl and Andrew R. McCloskey, Ms. Waring was a partner at Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps LLP (now known as McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP) from 1994 until 2004, and at Duane Morris LLP from June 2004 to October 2005. Throughout her career, Ms. Waring has handled numerous complex insurance litigation matters, including cases involving excess and reinsurance issues, technology, personal injury, advertising injury, environmental claims, construction defect, oil and gas, cell phones, lead paint, sick building syndrome, pharmaceutical products, internal prosthetics, food additives and other complex insurance coverage matters.
Over the years, Ms. Waring's practice has been primarily national in scope and has included the role of national and regional coverage counsel in several specific areas of coverage. Ms. Waring has litigated hundreds of coverage matters in many states throughout the country. Many of her cases have involved alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, including mediation and arbitration. She also has significant experience defending insurance bad faith claims, including numerous appearances before the California Court of Appeals.
Ms. Waring received her B.A. (1971, cum laude) from the University of Southern California and her J.D. (1981, summa cum laude) from the University of San Diego. She is a member of the California bar and has received the highest rating (AV) from her peers.
Michael Drury is a partner at McCloskey, Waring, Waisman & Drury LLP. His practice focuses on advising and counseling insurance companies with respect to complex insurance coverage disputes and representing insurance companies in coverage litigation involving construction claims, breach of contract claims, product liability claims, pollution claims, excess workers' compensation coverage and bad faith claims. Mr. Drury has successfully litigated numerous inter-carrier disputes involving primary/excess coverage, additional insured coverage and contribution, indemnity and subrogation claims. Mr. Drury practiced for many years at the National law firms of Greenberg Traurig and Arter & Hadden.
Mr. Drury has also defended fitness centers, grocery stores, developers, retail establishments and public entities against disabled access claims under both Title II and Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as the Unruh Act and California Disabled Persons Act. Mike was lead trial counsel in two separate cases tried to verdict in California. The first case was a Title II ADA claim filed against a large Southern California City pertaining to accessibility issues with sidewalks and curb ramps throughout the City. The case was tried in the Central District Court of California. The second trial took place in San Diego Superior Court and focused on claims for breach of contract, fraud, quantum meruit and unjust enrichment arising from a public works contract issued by the City of San Diego.
Richard E. Decker is an associate at McCloskey, Waring, Waisman & Drury LLP. His practice focuses on advising and assisting insurance companies with respect to coverage issues involving all aspects of general claims handling and resolution, including the investigation and analysis of claims, defense and indemnity obligations, and extra-contractual exposures for complex environmental, construction, advertising injury, and other matters. Mr. Decker also represents insurance companies in litigated matters involving all aspects of coverage, including bad faith.
Mr. Decker received his B.S. (2011, Magna Cum Laude) in Construction Management from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and his J.D. (2014, Cum Laude) from the University of San Diego School of Law. He is a member of the California State Bar.
In law school, Mr. Decker externed with the Honorable Joan Irion, in the California Court of Appeal, 4th District, Division 1, and the Honorable Marilyn Huff, in the Southern District of California. Mr. Decker also served as Editor-in-Chief of California Business Practice and had two of his articles published.
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Member of the Advisory Committee for the Vegan Trade Council
Sonia S. Waisman is a partner of the firm. She is engaged in general business litigation, focusing on complex insurance coverage cases. She has been national environmental coverage counsel for several large insurance companies and has served as liaison counsel in multi-billion dollar cases. Throughout her career, she has handled a wide array of litigated and non-litigated complex insurance coverage matters, including environmental, toxic tort (including mold), advertising injury and personal injury liability coverage, oil and gas, construction defect and bad faith, among other issues, under various types of policies. She has litigated in both state and federal courts throughout the country at the trial court and appellate levels, obtaining favorable judgments as well as achieving successful resolution through mediation. She has written several articles regarding insurance coverage law in professional journals, as well as annual updates for an environmental insurance coverage text.
Ms. Waisman also is actively involved in the development of animal law.
She co-authored the first animal law casebook, now in its sixth edition (Animal Law: Cases and Materials, Carolina Academic Press 2019).
She co-authored two other books on the subject: Animal Law in a Nutshell, now in its third edition (West 2021); and Animal Law: New Perspectives on Teaching Traditional Law (Carolina Academic Press 2017). She also has written several articles on the subject.
She has been an Adjunct Professor of Animal Law at Loyola Law School (L.A.); created and developed the first animal law course at California Western School of Law in San Diego; and was a Visiting Law Professor at Vermont Law School.
She was actively involved, for more than a decade, in the National Animal Law Appellate Moot Court Competition held annually at Harvard Law School.
Ms. Waisman also lectures and speaks at conferences on the subject of animal law. To name a few, she has spoken at the Animal Law Guild's Inaugural Conference on Animal Law (Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, Sept. 2014); Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon (15th Annual Animal Law Conference, Sept. 2007); New York University School of Law (Symposium, "Confronting the Barriers to the Court Room for Animal Advocates: Standing, Causes of Action and Cultural Transitions," April 2006); and Yale Law School ("The Future of Animal Law" Conference, November 2004). She was also Co-Chair of the Animal Law Guild Second Annual Conference, held September 26, 2015.
She was Vice-Chair on the Board of Directors of the Animal Legal Defense Fund and has worked with that national non-profit organization and others in the development of a wide variety of issues related to animal law.
Ms. Waisman is a member of the Advisory Committee for the Vegan Trade Council.
In addition to her law practice and work in the advancement of animal law issues, Ms. Waisman served as Judge Pro Tem for the San Diego County Superior Court, Small Claims Division, until she relocated to Los Angeles in 2000. While in law school she was a judicial extern with the California Court of Appeal, Fourth District.
Ms. Waisman is admitted to practice in all state and federal courts in California, as well as the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ms. Waisman was a Partner in the Los Angeles office of Morrison & Foerster LLP before she joined Riedl, McCloskey & Waring LLP (now known as McCloskey, Waring, Waisman & Drury LLP) as Partner in the Los Angeles office November 1, 2008. She began her practice working with her current partner, Kathy Waring, in the San Diego office of Adams, Duque & Hazeltine, which later amalgamated into Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps. She joined Morrison & Foerster as Of Counsel in that firm's Los Angeles office in June 2000.
Ms. Waisman has received the highest rating (AV) from her peers.