Francisco F. Guzman-Andrade is an associate in the firm's Litigation Department, where he represents businesses, property owners, insurance carriers, and institutional clients in a broad range of commercial and civil disputes. His practice spans commercial and contract litigation, real estate and land use disputes, consumer fraud claims, and complex personal injury matters. Francisco manages cases from pre-suit investigation through trial and appeal, and works closely with clients to align litigation strategy with their business objectives.
Francisco brings particular depth in transportation and catastrophic injury litigation. He has defended commercial motor carriers, leasing entities, and drivers in serious bodily injury and property damage actions, including matters requiring immediate accident-scene investigation, evidence preservation, and early exposure analysis. Clients rely on him to identify the issues that will drive a case long before pleadings are filed, and to build the factual record accordingly.
Efficiency is central to how Francisco practices. Having represented insurance carriers and self-insured employers throughout his career, he understands the reporting, budgeting, and litigation-management expectations that institutional clients bring to outside counsel. He provides candid early case assessments, evaluates liability and damages exposure realistically, and pursues dispositive motion practice and negotiated resolutions where they serve the client’s interests, rather than litigating for its own sake.
Francisco has significant experience across every phase of litigation, including pleadings, written discovery, depositions, expert development, dispositive and in limine motion practice, mediation, and arbitration. He has tried matters to verdict in the Superior Court of New Jersey and has resolved dozens of disputes through arbitration and mediation. He regularly appears before the Superior Court of New Jersey and the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
Prior to joining Montgomery McCracken, Francisco served as a law clerk to the Honorable Allison E. Accurso, J.A.D., of the New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division, where he drafted bench memoranda and assisted in the preparation of published and unpublished appellate opinions. That experience informs his approach to motion practice and record development at the trial level, with an eye toward how issues will be reviewed on appeal.
While at Rutgers Law School, Francisco served as Executive Editor of the Rutgers University Law Review and as a Henry J. Raimondo Legislative Fellow through the Eagleton Institute of Politics’ Graduate Fellowship Program in Politics and Government, working in the office of the chief counsel for the New Jersey Senate Minority Office. He also served as a student attorney in the school’s Immigrant Justice Clinic.
Francisco received his J.D. with honors from Rutgers Law School and his B.A. from Stockton University. He is fluent in Spanish.