Chad Pehrson

Mr. Pehrson is a member of KB&A’s litigation group specializing in intellectual property and corporate governance disputes. He directs various types of complex commercial litigation, with a focus on intellectual property, including patent and trademark infringement, as well as securities and antitrust litigation. Mr. Pehrson is a registered patent attorney with litigation experience in venues across the country, including federal courts in Delaware, Texas, Colorado, Nevada, Georgia, California, New York, Virginia, Washington, and Utah. In patent disputes, he finds his language training (M.A., rhetoric) to be as useful as his scientific training (M.S., chemistry) in distilling complex scientific material into organized information sets for non-specialist judges and juries. Mr. Pehrson also enjoys handling administrative actions in front of the SEC, Utah Division of Securities of other government agencies.  Mr. Pehrson and his distinguished KB&A colleagues including Jeremy Adamson were recently appointed by the SEC and the United States District Court for the District of Utah to act as a receiver and counsel to the receiver, with the goal of efficiently recovering resources stolen through an illegal securities scheme.

In his practice, Mr. Pehrson handles disputes for large and small companies within the technology and financial sectors, including Cisco Systems, CoolIT Systems, Elpida Memory, Intel Corp., Standard BioTools, Michaels Stores, Hellman & Friedman, Silver Lake, Brigham Young University, Scripps Research Institute, Sony Mobile Communications, the Corporation Counsel of the City of New York, and former officers and directors of Lehman Brothers, Inc.

Mr. Pehrson believes in Abraham Lincoln, and that nearly every dispute ought to take a shot at early resolution. He has enough work and does not want your dispute to continue past tomorrow, if at all possible. He nearly always proposes that parties explore the possibilities of resolution through early and ongoing mediation, and often recommends entering into express post-dispute-initiation med-arb or arbitration agreements.

Each year since 2013, Mr. Pehrson has been named to the Mountain States Rising Stars list for Intellectual Property Litigation. His peers have nominated him as one of Utah’s Legal Elite in business litigation each year since 2020.

Mr. Pehrson maintains an active interest in education, pro bono legal practice, and civic involvement. He finds expertise, advocacy and teaching closely related. Since 2015, he has been an adjunct professor in the MBA programs at Westminster College and Weber State University, where he designs and teaches courses on corporate governance, intellectual property, and contract disputes. He has coached high school students participating in the Constitutional Rights Foundation Mock Trial Program, and mentored engineering students enrolled in technology entrepreneurship courses at Stanford, BYU, and other universities.

Mr. Pehrson believes in maintaining an active pro bono docket. He has defended residential tenants from improper unlawful detainer proceedings, aided minors facing deportation proceedings, defended private individuals wrongly accused of copyright infringement, and assisted an elderly immigrant barber fight off frivolous claims filed against him after volunteering up garage space for a neighbor’s start-up business. In 2022, Mr. Pehrson and the KB&A team successfully obtained discretionary relief from the Department of Justice, cancelling deportation proceedings brought against a hard-working mechanic supporting children in local high schools. His favorite pro bono cases involve efforts to protect individuals against overreaches by powerful yet out-of-touch governmental agencies.

Presently, Mr. Pehrson enjoys his role as volunteer coach and secretary at a local elementary school’s chess club team.  Every winter, he volunteers with multiple local non-profit youth ski teams. He is not a good skier but loves his role as a volunteer, certified USSA coach. He particularly celebrates that look in a junior skier’s eyes when first feeling that lateral acceleration from a good carve!

Prior to joining KB&A, Mr. Pehrson was a shareholder at Parr Brown Gee & Loveless, an associate with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in Palo Alto, and a law clerk to United States District Judge Kim R. Gibson of the Western District of Pennsylvania. Mr. Pehrson also worked as a law clerk with Debevoise & Plimpton in Washington, D.C. and with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta. For many years, Mr. Pehrson owned and managed a small landscaping business. He misses his landscaping accounts, and values the many lessons learned, including that a successful business works to solve problems as quickly as possible in exchange for as little money as possible.  Mr. Pehrson has lived in 31 cities and believes that is because of an explorer’s heart and definitely not due to an inherent inability to get along with others.

Mr. Pehrson earned an honors degree from the University of Utah, where he appreciated assistance from National Merit and University Presidential scholarships. He enjoyed working in the office of former University President Bernard J. Machen. Mr. Pehrson also earned an MA in Rhetoric from Carnegie Mellon University and an MS in Chemistry from Lehigh University. While completing his law degree at Vanderbilt University Law School, Mr. Pehrson was voted by his peers as “Outstanding Third-Year Editor” of the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law. Mr. Pehrson and his wife are the parents of five children.

Due to a significant volume of ongoing matters, Mr. Pehrson’s dispute and counseling practice is fully booked.  While he reserves time to help current KB&A clients with urgent matters, he is not available to handle new litigation for businesses that are not currently clients.  He appreciates your understanding and looks forward to revisiting future opportunities when his schedule allows.  Despite the restriction on new commercial clients, Mr. Pehrson will always consider pro bono representations and encourages those in need to schedule a consult via email to cpehrson@kba.law.