Peter is one New Zealand's leading academic lawyers, with broad expertise in commercial law, particularly in agency law, company law, equity, and the law of restitution. Throughout his career, Peter has maintained an active legal practice, as the provider of opinions and advice to a wide range of senior counsel, major law firms, and provincial practices. His opinion has been sought in numerous Privy Council and Supreme Court appeals, as well as in litigation in the High Court and Court of Appeal, and before arbitrators. He was closely involved as a member of the legal team for the plaintiffs (non-appearing) in the Equiticorp litigation against the Crown in the 1990s.

Peter is the General Editor of Bowstead & Reynolds on Agency (19th ed, Sweet & Maxwell, 2010), the leading Commonwealth text in its field, and an author of Morison's Company & Securities Law and Heath & Whale on Insolvency. He is also the author of the award-winning treatise Directors' Powers and Duties (LexisNexis, 2009). He is NZ editor of the Restitution Law Review (UK), and Agency Law editor of the Journal of Business Law (UK). He has written for many of the Commonwealth's leading law journals, including the Law Quarterly Review (24 times), Cambridge Law Journal, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly, Journal of Business Law, Journal of Contract Law, Journal of Equity, Torts Law Journal, Australian Bar Review and Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal. His articles have been cited by judges in the House of Lords, High Court of Australia, Supreme Court of New Zealand, and many other Commonwealth courts.

Peter is a graduate of the Universities of Canterbury (1980) and Cambridge (1982), where he went as a Commonwealth Scholar. He was admitted as a barrister and solicitor in 1981. Before joining the University of Auckland in 1985, he worked for Duncan Cotterill in Christchurch, and Chapman Tripp in Wellington.