Steven N. Williams

San Francisco

Litigation

When the prominent antitrust authority Steven N. Williams moved to the Joseph Saveri Law Firm LLP in 2018, he sought to broaden his reach.

"I wanted to do some different work, work that would have an immediate impact," he said.

Over the past dozen years, Williams has been lead or co-lead counsel in more plaintiff antitrust cases than perhaps any other attorney in the U.S., recovering more than $2 billion for clients and expanding the rights of claimants to bring antitrust actions.

This year, he'd finally settled for a total of $604.55 million the last elements of a decade-old case challenging a cartel that conspired to fix, raise and stabilize prices in the multibillion-dollar market for capacitors, a component used in electronic devices. In re Capacitors Antitrust Litigation, 3:14-cv-03264 (N.D. Cal., filed July 18, 2014).

"I felt that as I moved into this phase of my career, I wanted to do some civil rights work," he said. Williams spoke just after having conferred with new clients in West Oakland who are about to sue over pollution in their neighborhood from a facility at which frequent fires contaminate the area.

"This is very much in line with what I want to be doing," he said.

Williams has successfully pioneered a new type of suit on behalf of social media content moderators who suffer PTSD and other trauma from viewing extreme and graphic violence as part of their jobs.

He obtained a groundbreaking $52 million settlement that included workplace improvements with Facebook Inc. in 2020 over the issue. Scola v. Facebook, Inc., 18CIV05135 (S. Mateo Co. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 21, 2018).

That win gained Williams and law partner Joseph R. Saveri a 2022 CLAY Award. Now, Williams has filed similar claims for content moderators at TikTok's parent company for "doing a thankless job that exposes them to the worst aspects of humanity" without proper protection. Young et al., v. ByteDance Inc., et al., 3:22-cv-01883 (N.D. Cal., field Mar. 24, 2022).

"We just beat their motion to dismiss," Williams said. "And to his credit, the judge suggested we accelerate the class certification stage because the serious harms we allege can't wait for resolution."

Those cases and a third against YouTube Inc. led to inquiries from lawyers in Kenya where Facebook has a content moderation station.

"They reached out to us and we were happy to share our insights into how this litigation can go," Williams said. "The lawyers are bringing human rights-type claims within the Kenyan court system. I believe we may have started a movement on behalf of these workers."

--John Roemer