TEST-University of Illinois College of Law

About

Professor Bensinger is a nationally recognized pioneer in the use of legal technology in the courtroom, which led The American Lawyer to dub him “The Most Wired Lawyer in America.” While he has handled a wide variety of complex commercial cases, Peter has had a focus in intellectual property and pharmaceutical antitrust. He was co-lead counsel for Bayer in the leading “reverse payment” patent antitrust case, In re Ciprofloxacin Hydrochloride Antitrust Litigation, in which Bayer prevailed in the Federal Courts. But Peter was an actor before he became a lawyer. After graduating with a B.A. in English from Stanford in 1980, he returned to Chicago to study improv for a year with Paul Sills, the original artistic director of The Second City – Chicago’s improv theater whose alumni include many Saturday Night Live performers. Peter then moved to New York City and worked as an actor for five years when he was called for jury duty on a cocaine conspiracy trial. At the time, his father was the head of the DEA. Despite this, the defense lawyer put him on the jury since he was a thespian. Post-conviction, the judge debriefed the jury and encouraged Peter to go to law school. So, he went to New York University School of Law and became a commercial trial lawyer. Following his associate training at Paul, Weiss in New York, Peter returned to his hometown of Chicago, where he worked at Kirkland & Ellis and was a featured performer in the Chicago Bar Association’s annual musical satire, appearing as Mayor Richard M. Daley and President Clinton in the year of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Peter spun off with Bartlit Beck LLP twenty-seven years ago and, for the past sixteen years, has been the Bartlit Beck partner responsible for lawyer training, new lawyer orientation, and attorney performance review.

Education

JD New York University School of Law
BA Stanford University