Williams' fashion clients on their commercial law needs. The work undertaken by him regularly includes advising fashion companies on agency and distributorship agreements, trade mark licensing, franchise agreements and competition law. Stephen has been publicly recognised as a leading authority on distributorship and agency law and, in particular, the Commercial Agents Regulations. He assisted in developingwww.agentlaw.co.uk, Fox Williams' specialist website dedicated to agency law.

In the last few months Stephen has been involved in advising a multitude of fashion principals and agents and suppliers and distributors on their commercial arrangements. Advice has been given in respect of the wholesale restructuring of networks of agents both in the UK and Europe. Stephen has been involved also in a series of complex international trade mark licensing and franchising arrangements.

Recently he was a member of the team which advised the Superdry brand owner, SuperGroup PLC, in connection with its institutional and retail share offerings which resulted in SuperGroup listing on the London Stock Exchange.

Stephen has written or contributed to articles that have appeared in Drapers, Womenswear Buyer, Footwear and Fashion Extras and Futura.  In 2006 Stephen became the business organisation editor of Business Law Review. He is also a regular commentator on radio and television where his appearances include GMTV, Newsroom South-East and BBC Radios 4 and 5 Live (on which he broadcast most recently on The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations). His most famous appearance to date was on BBC1's Watchdog programme where he defended Levis refusal to supply its jeans to Tesco against Anne Robinson's championing of Tesco's ability to sell them.

Stephen has for many years been a member of the Union Internationale des Avocats (UIA). At recent Congresses he has spoken on the topics of:

• protecting brands and the law of distribution contracts;.
• pre-contract negotiations; and
• intellectual property licensing agreements. 

Since 2007 he has been president of the Contract Law Commission.

From a personal view

Over the years clients and partners have given Stephen the nicknames of "The Barracuda", "The Rottweiler" and ‚ すつぽん. But out of the office his wife, Lynne, and son, Samuel, regard him as a pussy cat. With their assistance he loves nothing better than to mess about on boats, whether on river, lake or sea. His greatest maritime adventure to date was to skipper a 4m open boat down the Grand Canal of Venice and into the Bacino di San Marco. When restricted to dry land he collects cartoons and is an avid student of brand marketing and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.