William L. Stern is a partner in Morrison & Foerster’s Litigation Department and is resident in the firm’s San Francisco office. Mr. Stern, a member of the Financial Services Practice Group, is also Co-Chair of the firm’s Consumer and Class Action Litigation Practice Group.

Mr. Stern is a litigator specializing in the defense of consumer class actions with a focus on the defense of financial institutions. He also has extensive trial and appellate court experience defending commercial clients in cases arising from privacy and data breach, trade secrets, first-party insurance bad faith, franchise, intellectual property, lender liability, and prejudgment remedies.

Mr. Stern is the recognized authority on California’s Unfair Competition Law, Business & Professions Code section 17200 et seq., having authored The Rutter Group’s treatise and numerous articles on the subject. He presented oral argument to the California Supreme Court in a seminal UCL case, Kraus v. Trinity Management Services, Inc., and is a principal author of the 2004 amendments to section 17200, known as Proposition 64.

Mr. Stern was listed as one of Northern California’s “Super Lawyers” in 2004-2007 by Super Lawyer Magazine. In 2006, the American Tort Reform Association honored Mr. Stern by naming him as a Legal Reform Champion. He is a fellow of the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers.