John Stember is a founding partner in Stember Feinstein Doyle Payne & Cordes, LLC. He concentrates on employment and employee benefits work, with a particular emphasis on retiree health benefits class actions, ERISA, and sexual harassment litigation. He also represents executives in negotiation and enforcement of employment contracts, in actions involving non-compete agreements, and in negotiating severance packages.

Over the last decade, John has litigated a number of large class actions against companies that have terminated or reduced retiree healthcare benefits. These cases have involved thousands of former union employees, including former Steelworkers, Autoworkers, Chemical Workers, and United Electrical Workers, and have been brought against such major manufacturers as American Standard, PPG, GM, Ford, Chrysler, General Tire Corp. (now GenCorp.), Rexam (formerly American and National Can), Sunoco, and Crown Cork.

John is currently an Adjunct Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law as co-director of its Unemployment Insurance Practicum. He often lectures on workplace issues and has co-authored a manual on Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation. He also co-authored Battling for Benefits, that appeared in Trial Magazine (December 2005). He has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, including Al Franken and Oprah Winfrey, and his cases have been covered in the Wall Street Journal and all of Pittsburgh's major media outlets.

Earlier in his career, John worked as a legal services lawyer representing low income workers. During this time, he served as a local union president and as National Secretary of UAW Local 2320, the nationwide union of Legal Services Workers.

John brought the first same-sex sexual harassment case in the Western District of Pennsylvania and has received a number of favorable decisions from the Third and Sixth Circuit Courts of Appeals and the Court of International Trade. He is admitted to practice in the U.S. Supreme Court, all Pennsylvania Courts, and numerous federal district and circuit courts.

John is the longtime Chair of the Board of the Mon Valley Unemployed Committee, a non-profit group that assists dislocated workers in Western Pennsylvania. He was a founding Board Member of the Steel Valley Authority, a municipal authority created to facilitate industrial retention. He is a member of the Lawyers' Coordinating Committee and the NELA National Employment Lawyers Association. John was recently selected as a 2008 "Pennsylvania Super Lawyer."

John graduated in 1976 with a JD from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He graduated cum laude in 1972 from Ohio University, where he was a Cutler Fellow and a member of the Honors College.

John is a native of Brooklyn, New York, and is an avid golfer, reader and traveler. He is married with two children. He was also one of the creators of Robot Baseball, for a time America's premier play-by-mail fantasy baseball game.