Eric F. Hinton

Eric F. Hinton is the founding Director of the Robert B. Rowling Center for Business Law & Leadership at SMU Dedman School of Law. In addition to directing the Rowling Center, he teaches international business law, European Union law, and ethics and compliance law at SMU Dedman School of Law and Loyola Chicago University Corboy School of Law. Hinton has developed innovative law courses in international business practice and corporate compliance law and regularly speaks at business law and compliance events and conferences. He also lectures in the MBA programs at the University of Texas at Dallas, Jindal School of Management.

With 25 years of experience in international business law matters, he has worked as a global law and compliance executive in a Fortune 100 company, a private equity backed technology company, and was the first Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer for one of the largest franchisors in the world. During his career, Hinton has worked on legal and compliance matters in all parts of the world, based in Illinois, Texas, and Brussels, Belgium. Hinton began his career practicing international trade law in Washington, DC, with an international law firm. He is the founder and past chair of the North Texas Ethics & Compliance Council and past chair of the ABA Export Controls and Economic Sanctions Committee. Hinton is a Fellow in the SMU Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity and Academic Director of the SMU Certificate in Ethics & Compliance.

Hinton holds an LL.M. in European Union Law from the University of Leiden Law School (The Netherlands), a J.D. from BYU Law School, an M.A.in European Integration from the University of Limerick (Ireland), and a B.A. in Political Science from Utah State University. He studied international business law at the Sorbonne in Paris, France. Hinton has published a number of scholarly articles on international law and compliance topics, including at Columbia University, NYU, SMU, and the University of Texas at Austin.