Mr. William J. Edelman is a Milberg Partner practicing out of the Chicago, Illinois and Beverly Hills, California offices where he focuses on privacy, consumer fraud, and defective product class action litigation matters.

A former federal prosecutor, former police officer, and a Stanford Law graduate who has clerked for two federal judges, Mr. Edelman has over a dozen years of experience in federal and state courts.

Mr. Edelman’s class-action privacy practice spans many ways personal information is unlawfully collected and disclosed, leading to violations of privacy laws such as the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”), Illinois Genetic Information Privacy Act (“GIPA”), California Consumer Privacy Act, right of publicity laws, the California Medical Information Act, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and the General Data Protection Regulation. Mr. Edelman has served as court-appointed lead or co-lead counsel and settlement counsel in a variety of privacy class actions. Recent examples include In re Disney Worldwide Services COPPA Litigation, No. 2:25-cv-08410 (C.D. Cal. Dec. 17, 2025) (appointing Mr. Edelman co-lead counsel in privacy class action), In re Meta Android Privacy Litigation, No. 3:25-cv-04674-RFL (N.D. Cal. Oct. 27, 2025) (appointing Milberg co-lead counsel in privacy class action where Mr. Edelman represented Milberg litigation team), and Dal Cerro v. NTN Bearing Corp. of Am., No. 2024-LA-000075 (Kane Cnty., Ill.) (Mr. Edelman representing Milberg as settlement counsel in preliminarily-approved GIPA settlement).

Mr. Edelman has first or second chaired nine trials. He has handled numerous contested evidentiary hearings and dispositive motion hearings.

Mr. Edelman maintains an active and diverse pro bono practice; he has successfully obtained asylum in the United States for a family persecuted by a foreign government, prepared training materials for foreign prosecutors and law enforcement agencies under rule of law initiatives, and litigated constitutional torts.

Mr. Edelman earned his J.D. from Stanford Law School. There, he served as a Notes Editor on the Stanford Law Review and as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Stanford Law & Policy Review. Prior, he earned dual bachelor’s degrees from Virginia Tech, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and a Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology. He received a Master of Science degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Cincinnati. Prior to law school, Mr. Edelman served as San Diego police officer for four years.

Immediately following law school, he served as a law clerk for the Honorable Michael Boudin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and for the Honorable Charles R. Breyer of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Mr. Edelman is admitted to practice in California and Illinois.

Outside the office, Mr. Edelman is a devoted fan of Hokie football as well as the ever-growing list of sports teams his three kids play on. He is a brother of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity.