Stephanie A. Sheridan

Sheridan is chair of Steptoe & Johnson’s retail and e-commerce practice group and managing partner of the San Francisco office. She focuses on complex commercial litigation, including the defense of consumer class actions. She represents retail industry clients, from luxury brands to big box and value businesses, including Samsonite International S.A., The Talbots Inc., Eddie Bauer LLC, REI, The Home Depot Inc., Staples Inc., Tory Burch LLC, Gucci, L.L. Bean Inc. and several major department store chains.

She is on the board of Legal Momentum—the Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, a group focused on ensuring economic and personal security for women and girls by advancing equity in education, the workplace and the courtroom.

Sheridan is a go-to authority in the fierce defense of deceptive pricing class actions, yet her lighthearted approach shows in her office décor. “I keep samples of what I do,” Sheridan said, explaining that one pair of shoes on a shelf come from a client’s full price store and another pair is from an outlet. “Guess which is which,” she said.

Another display pokes fun at an opposing counsel who sued on his own behalf, Sheridan said, after buying an allegedly defective pet environment and two hamsters for his children “I call it Hamstergate,” she said, “and I’ve been known to kid him about it.”

Sheridan has defended more than 35 deceptive pricing class actions across the U.S., with a record of granted motions to dismiss and motions for summary judgment, the defeat of class certifications and outright dismissals.

“These can be a significant threat to the retail industry,” she said, pointing to a $50 million settlement in 2015 in a false advertising price comparison case against a department store chain. Sheridan was not involved in the case, but she noted that such successes encourage further efforts by the plaintiffs’ bar.

In the past year she said she has seen a trend in which plaintiffs’ lawyers seek new jurisdictions for such suits. She has been retained to defend six new pricing cases filed across the county against a variety of retailers.

In Washington state, she successfully fought off a matter of first impression when a plaintiff sought to bring a price advertising claims class action using the state’s Commercial Electronic Mail Act, which prohibits businesses from sending emails that contain “false or misleading information in the subject line” and provides statutory damages of $500 per class member per email. Sheridan filed a successful motion to dismiss, effectively shutting down a new threat to the industry. Harbers v. Eddie Bauer LLC, 19-cv-01012 (W.D. Wash, filed May 28, 2019).

— John Roemer