Janis Penton represented financial institutions as a partner in private law firms and as in-house counsel, most recently as associate general counsel and managing director of MUFG Union Bank. Penton is an expert on bank trust, custody and securities activities; a highly regarded public finance professional; and a recognized letter of credit expert.

Penton currently chairs the American Bar Association’s Law School Teaching Subcommittee and is the program director of the Committee on Trust Indentures and Indenture Trustees. She is an official observer of the Joint Study Committee on the Uniform Commercial Code and Emerging Technologies sponsored by the American Law Institute and the Uniform Law Commission. She represents the Trust and Investment Services Subcommittee and the Trust Indenture Committee on the ABA Business Law Section’s Securities Holding Infrastructure Taskforce. Penton was the secretary of the Article 5 Task Force jointly sponsored by the ABA and the International Financial Services Association that provided the basis for revision of the Uniform Customs and Practice and UCC Article 5. As a member of the Uniform Commercial Code Committee of the California State Bar’s Business Law Section, she was a primary drafter of the California legislative analysis for 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 and 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, a member of the editorial advisory board of Documentary Credit World and served on the U.S. Department of State Advisory Committee on Private International Law. She is also a member of the advisory council of the Center for Transnational Law and Business at USC Gould. She is a frequent lecturer and has written numerous articles on letters of credit and fiduciary topics.

Penton received her bachelor’s degree cum laude 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.