William M. Butler

Bill Butler works with clients to find practical solutions to manage risk and resolve disputes. Bill’s practice concentrates on shareholder and corporate governance disputes and complex commercial litigation, representing clients in a wide range of industries in state courts, federal courts, FINRA arbitrations, and other private arbitrations.

Bill has extensive experience representing business owners, directors, officers, and shareholders in corporate governance disputes, including derivative suits relating to malfeasance and self-dealing; claims by business entities against their officers and directors for breaches of fiduciary duties; and defending companies, officers, and directors against similar claims.

Bill also regularly handles complex commercial disputes, unfair competition and business torts, mergers and acquisitions, commercial equipment leases and sales, trade secret misappropriation, and construction and real estate development.

Additionally, Bill represents financial services institutions in broker-dealer litigation and other financial services disputes in federal and state court and FINRA arbitration.

In addition to his litigation practice, Bill advises clients in privacy and data security matters. He has experience managing data breach incidents and business email compromise, including investigations, reporting, notification, remediation, and interaction with state attorneys general as well as the FBI to investigate potential cyber-crime. Bill also helps clients to navigate evolving state and federal statutes and regulatory frameworks, including HIPAA, FCRA, TCPA, FOIA, NIST Cybersecurity Framework, and state privacy and background check laws.

Bill also maintains a strong record in pro bono service. His pro bono work focuses on defending tenants from wrongful evictions through Moore & Van Allen’s Housing Rights Project, which aims to protect vulnerable populations from homelessness. Bill has also litigated civil rights claims under Section 1983 in federal court.