William S. Berardino, KC is a British Columbia lawyer who was appointed by the provincial government to serve as a special prosecutor in the trials associated with the BC Legislature Raids.
Berardino was atop the 2011 Chambers Global list of top class-action lawyers in Canada.
[2] In 1986, as part of a libel case against The Globe and Mail and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Berardino won a judgement to permit his client the Bank of British Columbia to view CBC's videotapes of interviews that were not broadcast.
He also represented Imperial Tobacco in their failed appeal (Imperial Tobacco v. British Columbia) to the Supreme Court of Canada to overturn provincial legislation permitting governments to recoup medical costs from tobacco companies for smoking-related illnesses[4] Berardino was also a member of the judicial reform committee chaired by Ted Hughes that led to significant changes in the British Columbia judicial structure.
[7] In the landmark 2009 case R. v. Basi, Berardino successfully argued before the Supreme Court of Canada to protect the identity of an informant.