Janis Penton

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

She 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 in the United States and globally; 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).

In addition, 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 USC Gould.

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

The Washington Post
June 12, 2019
Re: Niels W. Frenzen

Niels W. Frenzen was quoted about the case of Scott Warren, an activist who was arrested and charged with harboring and conspiring to transport undocumented immigrants. In 2017, a directive from then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to prioritize cases involving the transportation of undocumented immigrants,"brought to a head the conflict between immigration enforcement and a sanctuary movement that reaches back to the 1980s," explained Frenzen. "While maintaining a spiritual element, the movement has become more political and less religious...especially as the Trump administration draws stark battle lines on immigration," he said. Frenzen's quote was also mentioned in the National Post, Daily Herald, Calgary Herald, Montreal Gazette, Leader Post, Ottawa Citizen, The London Free Press, The Star Phoenix, Canada.com, The Salt Lake Tribune, and The Province.

RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

Lisa Klerman
April, 2019

“Labor and Employment Law Jeopardy,” Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Section Annual Retreat, Westlake Village, CA.

Hannah Garry
April, 2019

Hannah Garry co-facilitated "#MeToo" at the International Human Rights Clinicians Conference held at the Univeristy of Pennsylvania Law School.

Thomas D. Lyon
April, 2019

Tom Lyon received a one-year $250,000 grant from the California Office of Emergency Services Child Advocacy Center Program for his and his lab's interviewing work in the Los Angeles County Dependency Court.