Janis Penton
USC Gould School of Law

Janis Penton recently retired after 40 years representing financial institutions as a partner in private law firms and in-house, most recently as associate general counsel at MUFG Union Bank. Penton is an expert on bank trust and securities activities, a highly regarded public finance professional and recognized for her knowledge of letters of credit.

Penton chairs the American Bar Association’s Law School Teaching Subcommittee and is the programming director of the Committee on Trust Indentures and Indenture Trustees. She was the secretary of the Article 5 Task Force, sponsored by the American Bar Association and the International Financial Services Association, that provided the basis for revision of letter of credit law; was a drafter of the California legislative analysis for UCC Article 5 adoption; and was a member of the drafting committee for the International Standby Practices (ISP 98).

Penton is a past chair of the American Bar Association’s Trust & Investment Services Subcommittee; Letters of Credit Subcommittee; and Working Group on International Letters of Credit and Bank Guarantees. She is a fellow of the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers and a member of the editorial advisory board of Documentary Credit World. She serves on the advisory council of the Center for Transnational Law and Business at the USC Gould School of Law.

Penton received her BA from UCLA and her MBA and JD degrees from USC, where she was a member of the Southern California Law Review and Order of the Coif. Following law school, she clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. 

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

NBC Los Angeles
October 14, 2021
Re: Gregory Keating

Gregory Keating was interviewed about a woman's claims that Amazon should take action against scams. "If scammers got Amy's phone number through and Amazon data breach, then the lawsuit might have legs," he said. "But there's no evidence that happened."

RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

Gregory Keating
August, 2021

“Irreparable Injury and the Incompleteness of Tort Law,” Oxford Studies in Private Law Theory II Conference.

Robin Craig
August, 2021

"Promoting 'Climate Change Plus' Industries Through the Administrative State: The Case of Marine Aquaculture," Yale Journal on Regulation.

Jonathan Barnett
August, 2021

"Startup Exit Strategies in the New Antitrust Era," Bloomberg Law, Aug. 11, 2021.