Please join the Institute for Technology, Law & Policy (ITLP) Research Group and the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2) for Part 2 of our occasional series, “The Anatomy of a Tech Antitrust Case.” Spearheaded by ITLP-affiliated faculty member and leading antitrust lawyer, Jennifer Dixton, this series dissects what goes into investigating, litigating, and crafting remedies in today’s biggest tech monopolization and merger cases.

Anatomy of a Tech Antitrust Case (Part 2): The Role of the State Enforcer

This session will explore the role of the State enforcer, and will feature California Supervising Deputy Attorney General Stephen Smerek, a first-chair trial attorney with nearly thirty years of experience investigating and litigating complex commercial disputes in California and throughout the United States.

The discussion will explore why States are interested in Big Tech firms and their challengers, as well as the circumstances that bring States to investigate and litigate these cases, sometimes with limited resources. It will also address how proposed changes to California’s antitrust law aimed at single-firm conduct could affect tech enforcement.

The ITLP Research Group brings together faculty, students, and visitors in technology, law, and policy. Membership of the group is currently open: bit.ly/IRG_Fall2025.

Guest Speaker: Stephen Smerek

Stephen Smerek is a first-chair trial attorney with over thirty years of experience investigating and litigating complex commercial disputes in California and throughout the United States. Mr. Smerek's experience includes numerous jury and bench trials, appeals, and dispositive motions, as well as hundreds of expert and fact witness depositions and investigative hearings in a wide array of substantive areas across a broad range of industries.

Steve graduated summa cum laude from Boston University School of Law in 1993, where he was Topic and Book Review Editor of the Law Review. Steve earned numerous awards during law school, including the Dr. John Ordronaux Prize (awarded by the faculty to the student who best demonstrated both exemplary academic performance and leadership), the Alumni Academic Achievement Award (awarded for highest cumulative grade point average in the three-year study of law), as well as AmJur Awards in Contracts, Constitutional Law, Trusts & Estates, and Family Law, among other honors.

After law school, Steve clerked for the Honorable Joseph L. Tauro, then Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Following his clerkship, Steve joined Goodwin Procter in Boston, MA, where he practiced complex commercial litigation, including class action defense and intellectual property litigation, before moving to Los Angeles, CA and joining Gibson Dunn in 1999. While at Gibson Dunn, Steve played a key role in the widely followed legal malpractice litigation brought against O’Melveny & Myers by the Los Angeles Unified School District arising from development of the Belmont Learning Center in downtown Los Angeles, in which the LAUSD sought over a quarter of a billion dollars in damages and fees. After several years of litigation, and scores of fact and depositions, that litigation ended with entry of summary judgment for O’Melveny & Myers. Following successful conclusion of the litigation, the site was subsequently developed as the Edward R. Roybal Learning Center.

In 2005, Steve was recruited to join the growing Los Angeles office of Winston & Strawn as a partner by now U.S. Magistrate Judge Gail Standish. While at Winston & Strawn, Steve participated in several bench and jury trials, including a five-week patent jury trial in the Eastern District of Missouri, for which Steve took the lead on damages issues, culminating in a one-billion-dollar verdict for his client. Steve has also argued appeals in the Ninth Circuit and Federal Circuit, including a victory for client Fresh, Inc., a subsidiary of Luis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, in the influential and oft cited Ebner v. Fesh, Inc. decision on the “reasonable consumer standard” in the Ninth Circuit. Steve joined the Antitrust Law Section of the California Department of Justice in 2021, where he is currently a Supervising Deputy Attorney General. There Steve is lead attorney on the State of California’s antitrust case against Amazon, including arguing the successful opposition to Amazon’s demurrer and taking several apex depositions.

November 20, 2025 | 3:30-4:30pm | Law Room 1314