Skip to Main Content
Our Commitment to Diversity
Brian J. Smith
Brian J. Smith

Brian J. Smith

Associate
Chicago
+1.312.807.4202
Email Brian J. Smith @ brian.j.smith@klgates.com
Download V-Card
Download Brian J. Smith PDF (English)

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).

REPRESENTATIVE EXPERIENCE

Brian was a summer associate at K&L Gates in 2014. While attending Northwestern University School of Law, he served as a judicial extern for the Honorable Ann C. Williams of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and as a legal extern for the United States Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Illinois. At Northwestern Law, Brian was an Articles Editor on the Executive Board of the Northwestern University Law Review, and was a senior law student in the Supreme Court Clinic, for which he drafted certiorari petitions and merits briefs submitted to the United States Supreme Court. Also during law school, Brian clerked for a Chicago-based litigation boutique and interned at a legal aid non-profit, Lawyers for the Creative Arts.

Prior to attending law school, Brian taught English literature and composition at a secondary school in New England.

  • Raoul Berger Prize (awarded for best senior research paper of graduating class) – Northwestern Law
  • Senior Research Honors – Northwestern Law
  • Public Service Award – Northwestern Law
  • CALI Awards (Legal Writing) (Patents)
  • American Bar Association – Antitrust Section
  • Chicago Volunteer Legal Services
  • Hemingway Society
  • “Navigating Parallel Proceeding Concerns In Complex Antitrust Multidistrict Litigation,” 2020 White Collar Practice Virtual Conference, Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, November 2020 (co-presenter)
  • Panelist, “An Investigation of Modern Love,” The Durrell School, Corfu, Greece
  • Guest Lecturer, “Hemingway’s First Thirty Years,” Dartmouth College
Additional Thought Leadership Pages
  • “Chapter 10 – Criminal Antitrust Enforcement,” ABA SECTION OF ANTITRUST LAW, ANTITRUST LAW DEVELOPMENTS (9th ed.), Forthcoming 2022 (contributing editor)
  • “Chapter 9 – Private Antitrust Suits,” ABA SECTION OF ANTITRUST LAW, ANTITRUST LAW DEVELOPMENTS (9th ed.), Forthcoming 2022 (contributing editor)
  • “Pre-Discovery Rule 12 Motions to Strike: Testing Antitrust Class Allegations at the Pleading Stage,” Perspectives in Antitrust, 21 August 2020
  • “U.S. Courts Annual Review, Ninth Circuit,” Global Competition Review, 6 July 2020 (co-author)
  • "Mitigating Antitrust Risks With DOJ-FTC Pandemic Guidance," Law360, 31 March 2020
Additional News & Event Pages
Return to top of page

Email Disclaimer

We welcome your email, but please understand that if you are not already a client of K&L Gates LLP, we cannot represent you until we confirm that doing so would not create a conflict of interest and is otherwise consistent with the policies of our firm. Accordingly, please do not include any confidential information until we verify that the firm is in a position to represent you and our engagement is confirmed in a letter. Prior to that time, there is no assurance that information you send us will be maintained as confidential. Thank you for your consideration.

Accept Cancel