Brian Peck

Brian Peck joined the USC Gould School of Law as director of the Center for Transnational Law and Business and adjunct assistant professor of law in the fall of 2016. The USC Center for Transnational Law and Business promotes world-class policy analysis and debate to help international businesses navigate the complex matrix of varied trade and compliance policies around the world.

Peck served as deputy director in charge of international affairs and business development for the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) from 2013 to 2016. GO-Biz is the lead state agency for California’s economic strategy on issues relating to international trade and investment. As an international trade and intellectual property attorney, Peck advised multinational clients on international trade, regulatory and compliance matters, international government and policy affairs, global IP asset management and trade-related IP matters.

Peck was senior director for intellectual property at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative from 2003-2005, and director of Japanese Affairs at USTR from 2001-2003. He was the lead negotiator for the intellectual property chapters in several Free Trade Agreements, including the U.S.-Colombia, U.S.-Peru and U.S.-Panama FTAs. He also oversaw the implementation of intellectual property provisions in the U.S.-Chile FTA and the CAFTA-DR Agreement. As senior director, Peck led an interagency team responsible for developing and implementing policies to strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights in Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia and Latin America; and was also responsible for overseeing U.S. trading partners’ compliance with bilateral and international obligations to protect and enforce IP rights. As director for Japanese Affairs, Peck co-chaired the U.S.-Japan Information Technologies Working Group, and worked on regulatory reform initiatives in Japan’s legal regime for IP rights, as well as in the IT, e-commerce and telecommunications sectors. He also led bilateral talks with several Asian countries under the WTO negotiations to liberalize international markets for services; and led the U.S. delegation at the WTO TRIPS Council meetings on IP matters.

Prior to his work for the U.S. Trade Representative, Peck was an attorney-advisor with the Office of the Chief Counsel for Import Administration at the Department of Commerce from 1998-2001, where he participated in a number of antidumping and countervailing duty cases. He also participated in litigation before the Court of International Trade and international dispute settlement panels, including an appearance before a WTO Panel in Geneva.

Before earning his law degree, Peck lived and worked in Tokyo, Japan, for more than nine years and held management positions with both U.S. and Japanese companies. Peck graduated Order of the Coif and received his law degree, cum laude, from the University of San Diego School of Law, where he served as a member of the San Diego Law Review. He received his BA from the University of California, Berkeley. 

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

The New Yorker
September 21, 2020
Re: Franita Tolson

Franita Tolson was quoted in the New Yorker about the legal challenges likely to follow the 2020 presidential election. “You will still see many claims that absentee ballots have been wrongly rejected, and those will lead to court cases," Tolson said. "The fact that we are generating lots of voting by mail will generate a lot of litigation.”

RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

Jonathan Barnett
July, 2020

"Lessons from Luckin Coffee: The Underappreciated Risks of Variable Interest Entities," Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog, July 28, 2020.

Jonathan Barnett
July, 2020

"Big is not necessarily bad," The Hill, July 30, 2020.

Edward McCaffery
July, 2020

“The Death of the Income Tax (or, The Rise of America's Universal Wage Tax),” Indiana Law Journal  95 (2020): 1233.