George Pierce is Special Counsel to ZEK’s Litigation and Cyber Security Practices. He has substantial experience and expertise in providing legal services related to complex litigation, corporate governance, labor and employment, bankruptcy, international trade, regulatory compliance and cyber security matters. Mr. Pierce retired from Toyota Tsusho America, Inc. in December 2022 where he was employed for 29 years and served as a Director, Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, and Corporate Secretary. He established the company’s Legal Department as its first General Counsel, and continuously served on Toyota Tsusho America’s board of directors for 22 years when he became the company’s first Director Emeritus and Special Legal Counsel. He also served on the boards of directors of several subsidiary companies. Before joining Toyota Tsusho America, Mr. Pierce was associated with Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander and Ferdon for 12 years where he had extensive experience representing Japanese corporations, Japanese owned subsidiary corporations and domestically owned corporations regarding various complex litigation, international trade, regulatory compliance, environmental insurance coverage, white collar defense, labor and employment, and internal investigations. Prior to Mudge Rose, Mr. Pierce was an intern at Miyake and Kitamura in Tokyo, Japan, which together with Mudge Rose, was counsel to a Japanese corporation that was a defendant in a large complex multinational litigation matter filed in New York State Court. Mr. Pierce’s experience with Japanese corporations and Japanese owned subsidiary corporations has largely focused on avoiding and resolving legal issues in the United States by bridging the understanding and expectations gap arising from significant differences between the law and legal systems in Japan and in the United States; For example, as to civil and criminal procedure and the evidence preservation and discovery process in the United States, shareholder liability, jurisdiction over Japanese parent companies in the United States, corporate governance, regulatory compliance, labor and employment, cyber and privacy, and development of policies and procedures that mitigate risk of liability. Focusing on Japanese parent and subsidiary corporations in the United States, Mr. Pierce has spoken on labor and employment issues at meetings of the American Bar Association, the International Section of the New York State Bar Association, the International Bar Association and the Asian American Bar Association, as well as the Practicing Law Institute, the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry of New York, and the Japan Society. He has also spoken at various webinars and CLE programs sponsored by Thomson Reuters, West LegalEd Center regarding cyber security matters, and at the Journal of Law and Cyber Warfare annual symposium. He has also co-taught sessions of the Illinois Institute of Technology's Chicago-Kent College of Law Cyber Security Certificate Program. Mr. Pierce holds a master’s degree in Sociology and a bachelor’s degree with majors in Psychology and in Japanese Language and Literature. Mr. Pierce is an accomplished musician, singer and songwriter who also holds a second-degree black belt in Kodokan Judo, an advanced class amateur radio license and has served in the United States Air Force.