Cody Berne is an advocate for his clients in cases large and small. He is prepared to go to trial if that is what the case requires. Cody has been first chair at over 40 trials. He leads Stoll Berne’s team in the class action lawsuit against PacifiCorp for starting fires across Oregon during the Labor Day 2020 storm. He was co-lead trial counsel in an 8-week trial where the jury found PacifiCorp liable to a class of several thousand people for gross negligence, punitive damages, and other claims. The jury awarded on average approximately $5 million to each of the 17-named plaintiffs. He was also co-lead trial counsel in the first and second damages-only jury trials on behalf of 19 more class members. The juries awarded several million dollars per person. The trials and litigation, including the work by Cody and his colleagues at Stoll Berne, have been featured in national and local news, including NPR, the Washington Post, Oregonlive, the New York Times, Bloomberg, Reuters, and the AP.
Along with representing wildfire survivors and their families, Cody advises investors who lost money because of fraud and other misconduct and plaintiffs in class actions. His class action experience includes securities, consumer, ERISA, food labeling, and fire cases. Cody’s practice also includes commercial and complex litigation.
He is an active member of the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association. Cody previously worked as a deputy district attorney at the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office. Before that, Cody represented individuals and businesses in cases involving investment fraud and a wide range of business disputes at a large Northwest firm.
He received the Haglund Award in 2016 from the Multnomah Bar Association. He was selected as a Future Star in Benchmark Litigation and also named in The Best Lawyers in America and Oregon Super Lawyers.
During law school, Cody interned for U.S. District Court Judge Kimberly Mueller and U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Delaney. Elected to Order of the Coif, he received the Clinical Legal Education Association Award and a Witkin Award. Cody also represented clients as a law student at the Civil Rights Clinic and Prison Law Clinic and earned a Public Service Certificate.
Before law school, Cody served as a police officer with the Portland Police Bureau and as a wildland firefighter across the West.