Brian J. Smith is an associate in the Chicago office and a member of the firm’s antitrust, competition & trade regulation practice group. He focuses his practice on complex civil and criminal litigation, government enforcement, and white collar criminal defense, particularly in the areas of antitrust, cartel, and trade regulation.
Brian defends clients in federal and state courts, principally in matters involving the Department of Justice and federal antitrust class actions, against allegations of price-fixing, market allocation, bid-rigging, and customer allocation. He also has experience in conducting internal investigations for major domestic and international corporations in response to Department of Justice and state attorneys general investigations and grand jury subpoenas premised on the same conduct. In this role, he has participated in the preparation of investigation reports, the interviewing of senior executives, and the management of complex international electronic-discovery collection, review, and production.
Brian’s pro bono experience includes representing minors in guardian ad litem proceedings and petitioners before the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission; drafting legal white papers on foreign evidentiary laws to aid a nonprofit’s lobbying against human trafficking; representing a foreign national in an immigration appeal before the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals; and representing individuals as part of the firm’s Cyber Civil Rights Project.
The K&L Gates antitrust and competition group has been recognized by Chambers USA for Antitrust in Illinois (2020), by US News-Best Lawyers: First- Tier Antitrust Law (2017-2020) and as the “Cartel & Trade Regulation Law Firm of the Year in Illinois” by the international review and assessment programs of both Corporate INTL Magazine and Global Law Experts (2016).
