Andrew Schuh was born in Mount Vernon and lived there until he graduated from high school and left to earn a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California in 1993. He went on to earn his Juris Doctorate from the University of Arizona in 1996. He currently has a law practice in his home town, Mount Vernon, after having practiced law in Southern California for 20 years. He is admitted to practice in Washington State, California and the District of Columbia.
Andrew started out his career at a medical malpractice defense firm in Los Angeles. Thereafter, Andrew worked at Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard and Smith, one of the largest firms in the country. He continued to defend medical malpractice cases at that time, while broadening his practice areas to include most any type of civil litigation and estate planning. Andrew was later recruited to the Legal Department of Sun Healthcare Group, Inc. (Sun) located in Irvine, California.
Sun was a publicly traded, diversified healthcare company with nationwide operations, over 30,000 employees and annual revenue of approximately $2 billion. Initially, Andrew worked for Sun as Corporate Counsel for Litigation. In that capacity, Andrew managed healthcare litigation in a 13-state territory. After two years, Andrew was promoted to Assistant General Counsel (AGC). As AGC, Andrew managed all litigation nationwide for the company and its subsidiaries and also added regulatory, compliance, employment law and human resource departments to his responsibilities. In addition, he became an advisor to senior management and the board of directors on all matters.
After 9 years of service to Sun, the company was acquired by Genesis Healthcare, LLC. Andrew and his family made the decision to move back to the Pacific Northwest, specifically to Mount Vernon, to be closer to his family and the home base of the family business, Schuh Family Farms.
Through Andrew’s law practice in Mount Vernon, he offers legal services in his areas of expertise: litigation, estate planning, healthcare, and agri-business. Andrew is currently serving as the President of the Skagit County Bar Association and is a board member for the Skagit County Law Library, Western Washington Agricultural Association Mount Vernon Public Schools Foundation, St. Paul's Episcopal Church, and the Mount Vernon Arts Commission.
Laura McCarthy received a bachelor's degree in Legal Studies from the University of California – Berkeley in 2004. She began law school at the University of Colorado-Boulder but put her studies on hold to relocate with her husband to Australia, where she worked as a legal assistant at a mid-sized firm and ran her own yoga business. When Laura and her family returned to her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi, she resumed her studies at Mississippi College School of Law, graduating summa cum laude in 2013. During law school, Laura worked as a teaching assistant for first-year Civil Procedure classes and as the research assistant for the Mississippi Criminal Law Reform Committee. She completed an internship with the Federal Public Defender’s Office in her third year of law school and worked as a summer associate for various full-service law firms in the area, gaining experience in a wide variety of practice areas from construction law and products liability to land use and environmental compliance.
Upon graduation from law school, Laura began her legal career as an associate attorney for a large, full-service law firm, where she was part of the national counsel defense team for a major pharmaceutical company involved in multi-district litigation and related state cases in various jurisdictions nationwide. Laura then moved to a regional firm to help grow the firm’s environmental law practice. She assisted in the development of a NEPA compliant Feasibility Study/Environmental Impact Statement for one of the largest public works projects in Mississippi, helped clients with soil and groundwater contamination investigations, and represented landowners in negotiations with the Department of Environmental Quality for corrective actions, including property restoration following a train derailment chemical spill onto farmland.
When Laura and her family moved to Washington, she sought out a firm where she could be part of a thriving litigation practice but still provide individualized legal services for local clients—a balance sometimes missing in large, urban law firms. The Law Offices of Andrew C. Schuh provided the perfect opportunity. Laura's practice now focuses on healthcare litigation and other civil litigation matters. Like Andrew, she seeks to provide the highest level of service and be available to address her clients’ specific needs, regardless of whether the client is an individual in the community or a national corporation.
Laura is currently serving as Vice President of the Skagit County Bar Association. In her free time, she volunteers with the Eastside Legal Assistance Program and enjoys spending time hiking in the beautiful Pacific Northwest mountains with her husband and two teenage children.
Shawna R. Smith, Assistant
Shawna Smith received a bachelor’s degree in Communications from the University of Puget Sound in 2017. During her time at the University of Puget Sound, Shawna played volleyball for the Loggers, and was a member of the Alpha Phi Sorority.
Shawna has wide range of background experience including being an administrative assistant in a large tax firm, an assistant college volleyball coach, and an assistant property manager at the family business, Island Property Management. The Law Offices of Andrew C. Schuh provides Shawna with the opportunity to develop relationships with local clients with their estate planning needs, as well as assist with healthcare litigation and other civil litigation matters.
In her free time, Shawna enjoys spending time with her Fiancé and her family.
