On the Job

Practice

Ed joined Stafford Rosenbaum LLP for the first time in 1982 after working for four years in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington. The emphasis of his work with the firm was litigation and appeals, primarily involving contract, dealership, antitrust and utility law. He served as the state’s Telecommunications Advocate from 1997 until the position in the Wisconsin Department of Justice statutorily expired in 1999. Ed remained at the Justice Department until 2004, where he worked on consumer protection, antitrust and utility matters and criminal appeals. After a year as a sole practitioner, Ed rejoined the firm in 2005.

Ed’s areas of practice include:

Utility Law. In addition to his telecommunications work, Ed has experience both in private practice and as an assistant attorney general in electric utility matters. Representing a utility, he took a lead role among intervenors in challenging on market power grounds the subsequently-abandoned merger proposal of Wisconsin Energy Co. and Northern States Power Co. Ed represented the commissioners of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of several provisions of the Wisconsin Utility Holding Company Act. The Seventh Circuit upheld the principal provisions under challenge in 2003.

Antitrust, Trade Regulation and Consumer Protection. Ed’s extensive experience in antitrust and trade regulation comes from his work as a prosecutor at the state and federal level and from representing plaintiffs and defendants in a broad range of litigation matters. He also has a deep understanding of the state’s consumer protection laws and regulations and the ways in which the laws are typically enforced.

Business Litigation and Appeals. Ed has represented plaintiffs and defendants in a wide range of business litigation from initial complaints through appeals. In one of his last cases with the firm before joining the Justice Department, he won a breach-of-warranty jury verdict in excess of $3 million in federal court on behalf of a small Wisconsin dinnerware business against the Japanese supplier of a line of dinnerware that contained excessive lead.

Ed is admitted to practice in Wisconsin. Click here for Ed’s lawyer rating. Ed was recently selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America© 2015 in the fields of Communications Law, Energy Law, and Litigation – Antitrust.

Education

• University of Chicago Law School (J.D., 1978)
• Georgetown University (A.B., 1974)

Professional Recognition and Awards

• Selected by peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America (since 2007), Litigation – Antitrust, Best Lawyers Lawyer of the Year, 2016

Publications

• “The Left Side of Antitrust: What Fairness Means and Why it Matters,” 77 Marquette Law Review 265 (1994).
• Author, chapter on “Trade Regulation” in the State Bar’s Annual Survey of Wisconsin Law from 1987 through 1996 and 2013.

Professional Memberships and Activities

• American Bar Association
• State Bar of Wisconsin
• Dane County Bar Association