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Areas of Expertise

Federal Prosecution, White Collar Crime, Cyber Crime, Digital Evidence, International Law, Intellectual Property


Courses

Transnational Criminal Litigation


Biography

Brian Pearce is an Assistant US Attorney with the US Department of Justice and Lieutenant Colonel/JAG in the US Army Reserve. For the last 2+ years he has been on active duty with a cyber/signal command in metro Atlanta and the Middle East, and now as the Legal Advisor to the Defense Forensic Science Center at Fort Gillem, Georgia, which provides courtroom and expeditionary forensics support to Department of Defense entities worldwide in courts martial, operational security, and other applications.

Prof. Pearce has 14 years’ experience as a federal prosecutor in San Diego, California and Atlanta, Georgia. His USDOJ career has included 14 years as an AUSA specializing in the investigation and prosecution of fraud, cyber, transnational, and intellectual property crimes. In the Northern District of Georgia his experience includes several years as his office’s International & National Security Coordinator and a CHIP (Computer Hacking/Intellectual Property) Attorney. He has prosecuted hundreds of cases involving fraud, corruption, narcotics, intellectual property theft and other federal crimes.

Mr. Pearce has 7 years’ experience as a diplomat overseas. From 2012-15, he served as Regional Attaché for the US Department of Justice (USDOJ) responsible for seven countries in Southeast Asia. His responsibilities included advising and assisting US law enforcement in criminal matters involving the region, coordinating the return of international fugitives to and from the United States, and coordinating international evidence gathering. He was dual-hatted as the USDOJ Intellectual Property Law Enforcement Coordinator for Asia. In this tour, he received various awards and recognition from the Department of State, FBI Director and DEA for contributions toward bilateral law enforcement relations and successful prosecutions of transnational corruption, narcotics, sex trafficking and cyber crime cases. In his first diplomatic posting in the region, from 2003-07, he served in a capacity building/rule of law role as the Resident Legal Adviser for the US Department of Justice and US Department of State in Thailand and worked in multiple countries.

After law school, Prof. Pearce clerked for federal judges in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and District of Hawaii, both in Honolulu, Hawaii. He has also briefly practiced transactional law in Silicon Valley and corporate litigation with a firm in transpacific firm in Honolulu.

His academic experience includes one year as a Teaching Fellow at Stanford Law School, and several years as Adjunct Professor at Emory Law School and Georgia State School of Law (International Criminal Law, White Collar Crime) for several years. He has served as an instructor at the USDOJ’s National Advocacy Center, ILEA-Bangkok, ILEA-Budapest and for the Departments of Justice, State, Defense and Commerce in multiple countries and in a wide array of academic, law enforcement, judicial and military forums.

Prof. Pearce is an Emory brat (University Apartments, now Clairmont campus) and was the Star Student of Druid Hills High School, Dekalb County and the 4th U.S. Congressional District. He received a B.A. in Political Science from Amherst College and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude, with a Commager Fellowship to Cambridge University, where he received a Masters degree in International Relations. Mr. Pearce received his Juris Doctorate law degree and an L.L.M. from Stanford Law School. He also studied in Germany on a DAAD scholarship during college, in Sweden as a Rotary International scholar, and worked at the European University Institute in Italy.

Prof. Pearce has served for several years as a board member and past Chair of the Criminal Law Section of the Atlanta Bar Association, on the Prosecution Function Committee of the American Bar Association, and on the Advisory Board to the ABA’s Asia Rule of Law Initiative. He is a member of the Cooper Inn of Court, the St. Thomas More chapter of the charitable organization, St. Vincent de Paul, and the board of the Kittredge Middle School Foundation. His hobbies include guitar, languages and tae kwon do (black belt).

LTC Pearce’s military career includes overseas tours in Korea, Thailand, and most recently a deployment to the Middle East from May – October 2021 as the Command Judge Advocate for the 335th Signal Command, along with capacity building/rule of law missions in Africa and Asia. Among his military awards are Meritorious Service Medals, the Korea Defense Service Medal and a Joint Meritorious Unit Award, along with wings from Thai Army Special Forces and an award from Thai First Army in recognition of his contributions to Thai-U.S. relations. He lives with his wife, two children, and pug Paris in Decatur, Georgia.