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Robert S. Stern's practice focuses on the defense of financial services litigation, primarily in the banking, securities, and accounting sectors. He has represented banks in a broad range of litigation, including antitrust claims, consumer class actions in credit card and other contexts, major contract disputes, lender liability, and breach of fiduciary duties. He also has audit firms and numerous companies and their directors and officers in the defense of shareholders' class actions and SEC investigations raising accounting and financial disclosure issues.

Mr. Stern has passed the CPA exam and, before becoming a lawyer, worked for both public and private accounting firms in the areas of auditing and tax services. He has represented national accounting firms on audit, tax and consulting malpractice issues, and in connection with regulatory and other concerns.

Mr. Stern graduated from The University of Chicago Law School in 1975, clerked for the Honorable John Minor Wisdom of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and then held a management position in the Carter-Mondale Presidential Campaign before beginning his legal career at Tuttle & Taylor. In 1991, he moved from that firm to Morrison & Foerster as a partner in its Los Angeles office. He is a long-time member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the Constitutional Rights Foundation. He is currently a Central District of California lawyer representative to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference and is regularly named a Southern California “Super Lawyer.”

Representative Matters

• Represented credit card issuer in a consumer class action that challenged its interest rate increase practices under the Truth in Lending Act and state consumer protection statues. Won dismissal and sustained it in the Ninth Circuit.
• Represented national accounting firm in a three-week trial that resulted in a complete defense verdict in an audit malpractice case brought by a former bank client of the firm.
• Represented national bank in a consumer class action that challenged the bank's practice of sharing certain information about its cardholders with telemarketers. Our client settled the case on favorable terms after substantial motion practice had eliminated all the significant damages exposure.
• Represented a computer storage company in a securities fraud class action that, after obtaining rulings from the court that substantially narrowed the issues to be tried, our client settled on very favorable terms before any material discovery had occurred.
• Represented national bank in consumer class action seeking payments for lost deposits upon closure of Saigon branch at time of Communist takeover. Won dismissal and sustained it in the Ninth Circuit.
• Represented a partner in a national accounting firm in a trial before a five-member Hearing Panel of the AICPA's Professional Ethics Division. After a two-year investigation, the Division accused the CPA of numerous violations of AICPA rules and professional standards in the provision of audit and tax services. At the conclusion of the trial, the Panel found the CPA innocent of all charges.
• Represented national accounting firm in class action brought by former clients who had acquired tax shelters later deemed abusive by Internal Revenue Service. Defeated class certification, then obtained dismissal with prejudice.
• Represented credit card issuer in a dispute over the nine-figure contract by which the adverse party provided virtually all of the support services for its credit card business. Our client settled the case on favorable terms two days before the trial was to begin.