W. Stephen Smith

Mr. Smith is the Co-Chair of the firm’s Antitrust and Competition Practice Group. His practice includes representation of parties before federal and state antitrust enforcement agencies, counseling, and litigation, with emphasis on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and distribution arrangements. Mr. Smith regularly represents parties before both the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission in merger and other antitrust investigations. He also counsels clients on a wide range of antitrust issues; many of these clients are in high-technology, life sciences, financial services, communications, and transportation industries. Mr. Smith represents parties in antitrust litigation at both the trial and the appellate levels, including Cargill, Inc. in Cargill, Inc. v. Monfort of Colorado, Inc., 479 U.S. 104 (1986). Mr. Smith has represented clients in matters before the United States Courts of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States involving a spectrum of issues, ranging from arbitration to federal regulation to constitutional law. Mr. Smith successfully represented a group of United States District Court and Court of Appeals judges before the Supreme Court in a constitutional challenge arising under Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution. United States v. Hatter, 532 U.S. 557 (2001). Mr. Smith was recently named as a top antitrust lawyer in the 2008 edition of Washington DC Super Lawyers. In recognition of his superior client service, he has been named to the BTI Client Service All-Star Team for law firms. He is also listed as a leading lawyer in the 7th edition of the Guide to the World’s Leading Competition and Antitrust Lawyers by the International Financial Law Review. Mr. Smith received his B.A. degree from Northwestern University in 1978, his M.B.A. from the Northwestern University Graduate School of Management in 1979, and his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1983. He associated with Morrison & Foerster in 1983, and became a partner in January 1990. Mr. Smith is active in the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association. He is currently the co-editor of The Threshold, a publication of the Merger & Acquisitions Committee. He is a co-author of the ABA Antitrust Section Monograph 16, Private Litigation Under Section 7 of the Clayton Act: Law and Policy (1989), the author of the merger and joint venture section of the Corporate Counseling Committee’s Antitrust Compliance Handbook (1993), and a co-author of World Antitrust Law and Practice (1997). Mr. Smith also serves on the Litigation Screening Committee for the American Civil Liberties Union of the National Capital Area. Mr. Smith is a member of the Bar of the District of Columbia.