Chris Peterson

John J. Flynn Endowed Professor of Law

University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law

Christopher Peterson is the John J. Flynn Endowed Professor of Law at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law where he teaches contracts, commercial law, and consumer protection courses. Professor Peterson was on leave from 2012 to 2016 serving as a Special Advisor in the Office of the Director at the United States Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in the Office of Legal Policy for Personnel and Readiness in the United States Department of Defense, and as Senior Counsel for Enforcement Policy and Strategy in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Office of Enforcement. From 2009-2012 he served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Before joining the faculty in 2008, Professor Peterson taught for five years at the University of Florida, Fredric G. Levin College of Law. He also worked as a consumer rights attorney for the United States Public Interest Research Group in Washington, D.C. and clerked for the Honorable Wade Brorby on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

A recognized authority on consumer finance, Professor Peterson has frequently testified in Congressional hearings and has presented his research to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and at the White House in both Democratic and Republican administrations. Professor Peterson’s books include the Thompson/West casebook Consumer Law: Cases and Materials and Taming the Sharks: Towards a Cure for the High Cost Credit Market which won the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers’ outstanding book of the year prize.  He is a consumer fellow of the American Bar Association’s Consumer Financial Services Committee. Professor Peterson is a recipient of the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators’ Consumer Advocate of the Year award and the Department of Defense’s Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence–both bestowed in recognition of his role in promoting an Act of Congress and subsequent implementing regulations that protect military service members from predatory lending practices.