William S. Lerach |
For over 30 years William S. Lerach was one of the nation’s leading securities lawyers, heading up the prosecution of hundreds of class actions which resulted in billions of dollars of recoveries for defrauded shareholders. He was involved in many of the largest and highest profile suits in recent years, including Enron, Dynegy, Qwest, WorldCom and AOLTW. He also pursued numerous high-profile human rights litigations, including suits for laborers in Saipan's garment factories, American WWII POWs forced to work in Japanese weapons factories, and victims of the European Holocaust. The $7 billion recovery he obtained for the Enron stockholders is the largest stockholder recovery in U.S. history.
Lerach has testified before federal and state legislative committees concerning corporate governance and securities matters and is frequently quoted in the national media regarding corporate issues. He was featured in the Oscar-nominated 2006 documentary, “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room,” and has lectured at Stanford University, Harvard University, Tel Aviv University, the University of Pittsburgh, San Diego State University, UC Berkeley, UC Los Angeles, UC San Diego, the University of San Diego, and Washington University. Among his many published articles and keynote addresses are: “Achieving Corporate Governance Enhancements Through Litigation” (2001); “Why Insiders Get Rich, and the Little Guy Loses” (2002), “The Chickens Have Come Home to Roost: How Wall Street, the Big Accounting Firms and Corporate Interests Chloroformed Congress and Cost America’s Investors Trillions” (2003), “The Alarming Decline in The Quality of Financial Reporting” (2004); “The Average Joe Deserves a Bailout” (2007), “Loser CEOs, Raking It In” (2007), “Always an Insider’s Game” (2008), and “What About the Rest of Us? Bailout Fails to Help the Little Guy” (2008).
Lerach received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Pittsburgh. In 2005 Pitt bestowed one of its highest awards on him, designating him a “Legacy Laureate.” Two years later the Justice Department ended Lerach's legal career by prosecuting him for activities in connection with stockholder lawsuits. He was sentenced to two years in federal prison. A former member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, Lerach is now retired and living in La Jolla, where he devotes himself to lecturing, gardening, tending a collection of Tribal Art and philanthropic activities.