Banking & Finance Lawyer Peter Carson Retires

Concluding a distinguished career in law, Peter H. Carson retired from Sheppard Mullin at the end of 2022. After starting his career at the San Francisco-based bankruptcy boutique Murphy, Weir & Butler (since merged into Winston & Strawn), Carson discovered his preference for a transactional practice and moved to Cooley (then known as Cooley, Godward, Castro, Huddleson & Tatum) in 1988 where he met his now wife Priscilla and developed a front-end financing practice representing banks and other institutional lenders.

At the urging of mentors such as George Hisert (then at the Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison firm), Carson also began his career-long interest in law reform, focused at that time on drafting projects to update and revise certain Articles of the Uniform Commercial Code, and in particular, UCC Article 9 (Secured Transactions). Carson’s work in this area led him to chair the California State Bar’s UCC Committee and rewarding involvement with the American Bar Association where he served in a number of leadership posts, including chairing the Secured Transactions and Letters of Credit Subcommittees of the Business Law Section (in the latter instance, co-chairing with Larry Safran and then with Michael Avidon).

In 2003, Carson joined Bingham McCutcheon where he expanded his finance practice and continued his commitment to pro bono legal services and the environment. In 2013, Carson moved for the final decade of his practice to Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton where he continued to serve as a letter of credit and UCC expert for colleagues and clients, chairing the firm’s legal opinions committee. Carson, who while in law school at University of California, Berkeley, in the mid-1980s served as executive editor of the school’s environmental law journal, co-founded Sheppard Mullin’s ESG and sustainability practice in 2020.

In addition to family and travel, Carson tells DCW that in retirement he also looks forward to “rolling up my sleeves to get deeply involved in one or more new nonprofits, perhaps in the area of climate, public lands or biodiversity, and learning to speak French and play (hopefully without embarrassment) the guitar.”