OVERVIEW

Peter Baugher has brought and defended commercial cases throughout the United States, winning major trials and arbitrations on significant issues for companies and individuals with challenging claims. Mr. Baugher now concentrates on arbitrations and mediations, both as an advocate and as an arbitrator, including in international commercial controversies. He has testified as a witness concerning attorney conduct and fees, and as an expert on U.S. securities laws and litigation at a trial in the Bahamas. Mr. Baugher is a member of the Illinois Bar and the Trial Bar of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mr. Baugher was for many years a partner in Chicago business litigation boutique Schopf & Weiss LLP and its 2015 merger successor, Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP. Earlier, he was a litigation partner at Adams Fox Adelstein & Rosen, and Schiff Hardin LLP.

Mr. Baugher chaired U.S. Senator Mark Kirk’s Judicial Advisory Board recommending Illinois federal judicial candidates, is President of the Chicago International Dispute Resolution Association, and was principal drafter of the Illinois International Commercial Arbitration Act, 710 ILCS 30/1-1 et seq. He arbitrates business disputes for the American Arbitration Association Large Complex Commercial Case Panel, the International Centre for Dispute Resolution, and the Financial industry Regulatory Authority, as well as independently. He is a Chartered Institute of Arbitrators Fellow (London) and serves on the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre and Asian International Arbitration Centre (Malaysia) arbitrator panels. Mr. Baugher is a Life Member of the American Law Institute and on its Consultative Group for the pending Restatement of the U.S. Law of International Commercial and Investment Arbitration. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative. Previously, he was a director and Chicago chapter president of the International Network of Boutique Law Firms, president of the Chicago Lincoln American Inn of Court, and chaired the Chicago Bar Association International and Foreign Law, and Federal Civil Practice Committees. He served on the Seventh Circuit Bar Association’s American Jury Project Commission charged with assessing and recommending improvements in U.S. trial procedures.

Mr. Baugher lectures frequently on dispute resolution topics to bar groups and industry associations. He has visited and spoken at international bar meetings and arbitration centers in Brussels, Hong Kong, Singapore, Delhi, Dubai, and Chicago. Mr. Baugher serves as a director of the Grant Park Music Festival, and was a longtime director of the Illinois Humanities Council and the Sabre Foundation, a leading international book donation organization. He received the Arnold Berlin Award for Service to Princeton University. A statewide survey published annually in Chicago Magazine has twice ranked Mr. Baugher one of the top ten attorneys in Illinois, and he is routinely listed in professional polls as one of the state’s foremost business litigators and arbitrators.

Mr. Baugher graduated from Yale Law School, and was an editor of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University where he majored in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and was a Wilson School Scholar. Following law school, Mr. Baugher clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit for Judge Philip W. Tone. 

Mr. Baugher and his wife Robin, an accomplished artist (formerly a massage therapist, hospice volunteer, public television producer, banker, and speechwriter) have two grown children and two grandchildren. The Baughers met working at the White House at the outset of their careers. They live in Chicago.

EDUCATION
Yale Law School, J.D.
• Yale Review of Law and Social Action, Editor
Princeton University, A.B.

BAR ADMISSION
Illinois Supreme Court

COURT ADMISSIONS
U.S. Supreme Court
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (Trial Bar)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit

CLERKSHIP
Judge Philip W. Tone, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Law Clerk