LAWYERS

William P. Butterfield

1700 K Street, NW Suite 650
Washington, DC 20006
202.540.7200 ph
202.540.7201 fax
wbutterfield@hausfeldllp.com
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A partner at Hausfeld LLP, Mr. Butterfield chairs the firm’s Financial Services Practice Group .  In his 33 years of legal practice, Mr. Butterfield has represented governmental agencies, brokerage firms, corporations, directors and officers, attorneys and investors in private litigation over securities, commodities, antitrust and consumer claims, and in investigations commenced by the Securities and Exchange Commission. He has also defended clients in bankruptcy adversary proceedings and commercial litigation.  Additionally, Mr. Butterfield serves as a leader in several legal think tanks, teaches law, and writes and speaks frequently on legal topics. Mr. Butterfield has a rating of AV,^® the highest rating available in Martindale-Hubblle’s peer review rating system. He is an internationally recognized authority on electronic discovery.   

Currently, Mr. Butterfield is counsel for the plaintiffs in In re Air Cargo Shipping Services Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 1775 (E.D.N.Y.), which has resulted in approximately $250 million in settlements to date. He was appointed by the Court to serve on the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee in In re: Commodity Exchange, Inc., Silver Futures and Options Trading Litigation, No. 11-MD-2213, (S.D.N.Y.), relating to an alleged conspiracy by JP Morgan Chase and other major investment banks to manipulate the price of silver futures and options contracts traded on the COMEX. Mr. Butterfield is also involved in litigation regarding LIBOR-based interest rate swap transactions, the foreign exchange practices of custodian banks, and alleged manipulation in the Oil and Rice futures markets.

Mr. Butterfield’s past achievements include:

• Achieving settlements of over $120 million in a lawsuit alleging output restrictions in the wood products industry (In Re OSB Antitrust Litigation, (E.D. Pa.));
• Achieving settlements of almost $100 million in an antitrust price-fixing case involving the chemical industry (In Re Hydrogen Peroxide Antitrust Litigation, (E.D. Pa.));
• Acting as one of the principal attorneys involved in nationwide litigation challenging lending practices conducted by one of the nation’s largest sub-prime lenders. In that case, Mr. Butterfield worked extensively with the FTC, and was responsible for bringing nationwide media and Congressional attention to lending practices conducted by Associates Finance. The plaintiffs and FTC eventually settled with Citigroup (which had acquired Associates Finance) for $240 million (In Re Citigroup Loan Cases, J.C.C.P. 4197);
• Acting as one of the  principal Plaintiffs’ attorneys in In re Prudential Securities Limited Partnerships Litigation, MDL No. 1005 (S.D.N.Y.), which settled for $137 million;
• Acting as one of the principal Plaintiffs’ attorneys in In re PaineWebber Securities Litigation, 94 Civ. 8547 (S.D.N.Y.), which settled for $200 million;
• Serving as outside counsel in the RTC’s successful defense of a $300 million arbitration dispute regarding the valuation of an acquired financial institutions investment and mortgage portfolio;
• Serving as outside counsel for the FDIC and RTC in numerous lawsuits and investigations to recover losses suffered by financial institutions due to securities, commodities, and real estate fraud, director and officer misconduct and accounting malpractice;
• As outside counsel, representing political subdivisions in Texas, Ohio and California regarding securities matters.

Mr. Butterfield developed his interest in electronic discovery in the early 1990’s when he helped design and implement an electronic document repository to manage more than 15 million pages of documents in a complex securities case. He has testified as an expert witness on e-discovery issues, and speaks frequently on that topic domestically and abroad. Mr. Butterfield is on the Steering Committee of The Sedona Conference^® Working Group on Electronic Document Retention and Production, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Case for Cooperation (2009), and was a co-editor of The Sedona Conference^® Commentary On Preservation, Identification and Management of Sources of Information that are Not Reasonably Accessible (2008). He is also a member of Sedona Conference^® Working Group on International Electronic Information Management, Discovery and Disclosure. Mr. Butterfield is an adjunct professor at American University, Washington College of Law, where he teaches a course in electronic discovery. He also serves on the Masters Conference Advisory Board, and on the faculty of Georgetown University Law Center’s Advanced E-Discovery Institute. 

Mr. Butterfield began his legal career as an assistant prosecuting attorney for Montgomery County, Ohio.