January 22, 2008 – Dean Hiram Chodosh announced today that Christopher L. Peterson, an associate professor at the University of Florida, will join the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College faculty as a professor, effective fall semester 2008.
“We are thrilled to have Chris on the faculty,” Chodosh said. “As the most exciting consumer law scholar of his generation, he is a leading public voice for victims of predatory lending practices at the root of the country’s mortgage financing crisis. We look forward to his contributions as an inspiring teacher, prolific author, and leading advocacy for economic justice.”
A 2001 graduate of the University of Utah College of Law, Peterson has published widely in the field of consumer law. His 2004 book Taming the Sharks: Towards a Cure for the High Cost Credit Market, which he began working on while still in law school, was honored as the Outstanding Book of the Year by the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. An article he co-authored with fellow law professor Steven Graves, Predatory Lending and the Military: The Law and Geography of “Payday” Loans in Military Towns, published in the Ohio State University Law Review, attracted media coverage in The New York Times, U.S.A. Today, and other media outlets. Peterson was also named the National Consumer Advocate of the Year for 2007 by the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators.
Peterson, who has several articles forthcoming on the subjects of payday lending and the subprime mortgage crisis, said that he is excited and humbled, by the offer, and looks forward to returning to Utah to continue his teaching, research, and writing at the Quinney College. Since 2003, he has been a law professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. Dean Chodosh referred to Professor Peterson as the “Urban Meyer of consumer law.”
“I feel tremendously honored to teach and do research at the University of Utah,” Peterson said. “I’m looking forward to helping advise Utah’s leaders and the public on the many consumer protection and business law challenges our communities face.”
In the 2007-08 year, Peterson taught classes in consumer law, contract law and commercial law as a visiting professor at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law.