Steve W. Berman

SEATTLE - Steve W. Berman is a plaintiff's attorney widely recognized for taking on large corporations in class action lawsuits. He is perhaps best known for bringing a class action lawsuit against big tobacco in the 1990s, helping to negotiate a $206 billion settlement from cigarette makers, which remains the largest settlement in history. He also won a $215 million settlement against Enron related to lost pension funds and represented auto dealers in a $1.6 billion lawsuit against Volkswagen for cheating on diesel emissions.

Berman is currently handling a number of price-fixing cases, including antitrust litigation challenging Amazon's "most favored nation" policies that allegedly drive up prices. Another lawsuit revolves around the price of student housing in college towns, accusing real estate firms and property management software firm RealPage of helping landlords set artificially inflated rent prices. He also leads a series of cases accusing leading meatpacking manufacturers of colluding to artificially inflate the price of proteins sold to American consumers.

Last year, Berman secured a $90 million settlement in a lawsuit against Google, alleging it violated antitrust laws and harmed developers through anti-competitive policies in its Play Store. In re: Google Play Developer Antitrust Litigation, 3:20-cv-05792-JD (N.D. Cal., filed Aug. 17, 2020).

Google's policy forced app developers to pay a 30% commission fee on sales made through Google Play. The settlement came on the heels of a $100 million class action settlement with Apple in 2021 based on similar claims. Donald R. Cameron et al. v. Apple Inc., 4:19-cv-03074 (N.D. Cal., filed June 4, 2019).

"We handled price-fixing cases against Apple and Google on behalf of developers who claimed that both Apple and Google abused their monopoly power and charged them too much. We settled those cases for a significant percent of damages, and a change in practices by Apple and Google that will make competition easier for developers," Berman said.

After Apple began sending out payments to developers in October, Berman received a letter from a developer who thanked him for bringing about impactful changes to Apple's practices.

"I sent it around to everyone in the firm because this is what class actions are about -- sometimes you have a case that can affect hundreds, thousands or even millions of people," Berman said. "We're currently leading price-fixing cases affecting food, home prices and basic essentials that people rely on -- it doesn't get more powerful, in terms of impactful litigation, than to be doing stuff like that."

Though Berman and his firm have won big settlements and brought about real change, the accomplishment he's most proud of is training the next generation of plaintiff's attorneys.

"We've been hiring first- and second-year lawyers, which we've never done before, and training them to be driven and excited about doing impactful litigation from the plaintiff's side," he said. "When I look at the Big 10 law schools, 99% of those kids are going to Am Law 100. If we can grab some smart, bright kids and train them to be on the plaintiff's side, I think that's really important.