Kent M. Williams has over 30 years of experience representing large classes of consumers, employees, and small businesses in antitrust, wage and hour, consumer fraud, data breach, privacy, employment discrimination, securities fraud, trespass, and product liability lawsuits. 

Mr. Williams received his J.D. magna cum laude with legal writing honors from the University of Minnesota in 1991, where he was published in the University of Minnesota Law Review and competed against other law schools as a member of Minnesota’s Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition Team.

 After a summer internship with Jenner & Block in Chicago, Mr. Williams decided to remain in the Twin Cities, where he joined Dorsey & Whitney, one of the largest firms in the Midwest. After a few months, Mr. Williams yearned for more “hands on” experience, so he moved to Opperman Heins & Paquin (now known as Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP), a class action boutique where he was responsible for a variety of class and non-class matters. One of his most memorable experiences at OHP was coordinating the successful defense of the late Dr. John S. Najarian, a renowned surgeon who was accused by the Food and Drug Administration of illegally marketing and selling Minnesota antilymphocyte globulin (“MALG”), an anti-rejection drug that Dr. Najarian had developed into what became the immunosuppressive “gold standard” for transplant surgery.

 In 1994, Mr. Williams and four other attorneys formed a new class action firm, Heins Mills & Olson, P.L.C.  His practice expanded to include class actions against major manufacturers of infant formula, industrial diamonds, hearing aids, polybutylene pipe, synthetic stucco, and other products. He advocated fiercely for consumers in antitrust cases, winning one of the first-ever contested indirect purchaser class certifications in the country, as well as an appellate court victory in North Carolina that established a private right of action for indirect purchasers in that state. Mr. Williams also represented landowners in class actions alleging trespass against railroads and telecommunications companies for burying fiber optic cable on private property without permission.

A firm believer that “variety is the spice of life,” in the mid-2000s, Mr. Williams decided to open a solo practice that allowed him to branch out into other areas of the law, while continuing to represent plaintiffs in class actions and other complex commercial matters. Over the next twenty years, Mr. Williams successfully handled a diversity of probate, family law, land-use, administrative law, criminal law, and employment law matters. During that same time period, he served as trial and/or lead counsel in a number of behemoth class actions brought against Big Pharma, Microsoft, and other large corporations. Mr. Williams is recognized as one of the first lawyers in the country to wage mass arbitration “guerilla warfare” (in the words of one legal commentator) by bringing hundreds of individual wage-and-hour arbitrations against a large, well-known restaurant chain.

More recently, Mr. Williams has expanded his practice to include consumer privacy litigation. He manages the Firm’s genetic and biogenetic information privacy litigation group, and he serves as class counsel in a number of privacy cases, including one brought against a well-known online healthcare company. At the same time, Mr. Williams continues to advocate for consumers victimized by price-fixing, monopolization, securities fraud, financial fraud, and other unlawful schemes.

Representative cases: 

• Turner v. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (D. Colo.) – as Lead Counsel, obtained a $4.8 million settlement for thousands of employees alleging wage and hour violations
• Pro-Sys Consultants v. Microsoft (B.C., Canada) – as Trial Counsel, helped obtain a $300+ million settlement for indirect purchasers of software 
• Austin v. Metropolitan Council (D. Minn.) – as Lead Counsel for a group of African-American bus drivers, negotiated significant improvements to Metro Transit’s system for processing customer complaints and disciplining employee bus drivers
• In re Average Wholesale Price Litigation (D. Mass) – as Settlement Allocation Counsel for a class of consumers, negotiated with insurers and government entities on the division of a $150 million settlement
• Comes v. Microsoft (Iowa) – as Trial Counsel, helped obtain a $179 million statewide settlement for consumers, schools, and small businesses
• Harp v. Qwest (Oregon) – as Co-Lead Counsel, helped obtained a $15,000,000 statewide settlement for retail purchasers of mobile phones
• In re Cooper Tire (New Jersey) – as a member of the Executive Committee, helped obtain a $100,000,000 settlement for retail purchasers of tires  
• Ruff v. Parex (North Carolina) – as a member of the Executive Committee and Trial Counsel, helped obtained a statewide settlement of $60,000,000 for owners of homes clad with synthetic stucco
• In re Travel Agents (D. Minn.) – as Class Counsel, helped obtain a nationwide settlement of $92,000,000 for travel agents against the major airlines for alleged price-fixing and market allocation
• Infant Formula Litigation (various states) – as Trial Counsel, helped obtain a $64,000,000 global settlement for retail purchasers of infant formula

Representative news and legal commentary:

• SMALL CLAIMS, BIG MASS: MASS ARBITRATION AND DATA PRIVACY PROTECTION,  1.4 JDR Online 89, n.2 (2023), found at https://moritzlaw.osu.edu/sites/default/files/2023-05/1.%20Alfonso%2089-96.pdf
• Glover, J., Mass Arbitration, 74 Stanford Law Review 1283, 1323, 1333 (2022), found at https://review.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2022/09/Glover-74-Stan.-L.-Rev.-1283.pdf
• Business Insider, November 10, 2021, found at https://www.businessinsider.com/how-plaintiffs-law-firms-bring-mass-arbitration-cases-class-actions-2021-11
• Andrew Wallender, Corporate Arbitration Tactic Backfires as Claims Flood In, BLOOMBERG L. (Feb. 11, 2019), found at https://perma.cc/XT8Y-TW2S
• Los Angeles Times, January 4, 2019 found at https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-chipotle-20190104-story.html
• Chipotle Faces Mass Influx of Arbitration Cases, Tennessee Bar Association, December 20, 2018, found at https://www.tba.org/?pg=Articles&blAction=showEntry&blogEntry=33097
• Chipotle’s Mandatory Arbitration Agreements Are Backfiring Spectacularly, Huffington Post, December 20, 2018, found at https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chipotle-mandatory-arbitration-agreements_n_5c1bda0de4b0407e90787abd
• Plaintiffs Lawyers Strike Back to Compel Arbitration, Law.com, December 6, 2018, found at https://www.law.com/therecorder/2018/12/06/calling-uber-on-their-bluff-plaintiffs-lawyers-strike-back-to-compel-arbitration/?slreturn=20250217-13545
• The Supreme Court Just Helped Chipotle Boot 2,814 Workers From A Wage Theft Lawsuit, Huffington Post, August 10, 2018, found at https://www.huffpost.com/entry/thousands-of-chipotle-workers-just-got-booted-from-a-wage-theft-lawsuit-thank-to-the-supreme-court_n_5b6d96cce4b0bdd06208b2b2
• Iowa Attorneys Say Microsoft Defying Justice Pact, The Street, January 22, 2006, found at https://www.thestreet.com/technology/iowa-attorneys-say-microsoft-defying-justice-pact-10333902