About Andrew Rainer

Andrew Rainer is Of Counsel to the Pawa Law Group, and also serves as Litigation Director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute.  For the past decade, Mr. Rainer has been one of the leading lawyers holding the tobacco industry responsible for its historic unfair business practices.  In 2022, he was trial co-counsel in the largest civil jury verdict in the history of Massachusetts, a $1 billion verdict against Philip Morris.

Mr. Rainer also has over 30 years of experience representing businesses, state and local governments, and individuals in a wide variety of environmental litigation, involving oil spills, hazardous materials and hazardous waste, groundwater contamination, air pollution, landfills, environmental permitting, PCBs, asbestos removal, lead paint, infectious diseases, public and private nuisance.

From February 2008 to June 2014, Mr. Rainer served as Chief of the Massachusetts Environmental Strike Force, a cooperative effort of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, and Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, designed to investigate and prosecute the most serious environmental violations. At the Strike Force, Mr. Rainer worked closely with most of the state and federal officials in Massachusetts who enforce the environmental laws, and is therefore well positioned to help a client respond to and resolve environmental enforcement matters.

Mr. Rainer’s prior experience includes service as an Assistant District Attorney, as an Assistant Attorney General, and as Counsel to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee.  He has also worked in private practice for over 20 years, and has been honored both for his work as a lawyer (Lawyer of the Year) and as a prosecutor (Prosecutor of the Year).  He is a Massachusetts Superlawyer, and earned the highest peer rating possible of AV Preeminent* from Martindale-Hubbell.

Mr. Rainer is licensed in Massachusetts, Florida and the District of Columbia, and admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit and the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. He graduated from Princeton University in 1979, and the New York University School of Law in 1982.  While in law school, he served as senior editor of the New York University Law Review, and after law school, clerked for U.S. District Judge Charles Richey.

A frequent speaker, lecturer and writer, Mr. Rainer is also actively involved in the community, including the following organizations: Community Action Works (formerly the Toxics Action Center), Clean Water Action, Alternatives for Community and Environment, and The Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow.