Gerald M. Serlin

Gerald Serlin, a founding partner of Benedon & Serlin LLP, is a distinguished appellate attorney with nearly four decades of experience. As the current managing partner of B&S, one of Southern California’s premier appellate boutique law firms, Gerald’s practice spans a wide range of substantive areas, such as employment, contracts, civil rights, torts, arbitration, and anti-SLAPP.

Gerald actively contributes to a number of professional organizations, including the Los Angeles County and San Fernando Valley Bar Associations, the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, and the California Employment Lawyers Association and has served as a Voluntary Settlement Officer for the California Court of Appeal in the Second Appellate District.

Gerald’s commitment to appellate practice has earned him several prestigious awards, including the 2016 CLAY Award for extraordinary achievement in appellate practice. He has also consistently been recognized for many years in Appellate Law by Best Lawyers in America and Southern California Super Lawyers.

Some of Gerald’s most prominent cases include:

• Served as lead counsel in a matter in which the United States Supreme Court reversed a Ninth Circuit opinion holding that police officers were not entitled to qualified immunity for entering a home in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The United States Supreme Court held that the police officers had a reasonable basis for fearing that violence was imminent, which justified a warrantless entry and entitled them to qualified immunity.
  

• Convinced both the California Court of Appeal and the California Supreme Court that an action brought under the Uniform Foreign Money-Judgment Recognition Act should not be barred by the statute of limitations. As the final word, the California Supreme Court held that the plaintiff’s lawsuit for embezzlement was not barred because the cause of action did not accrue until after a foreign appellate court had issued an amended judgment.
  

• Persuaded the California Supreme Court to reverse the appellate court’s decision that had allowed a testator’s estate to pass by intestate succession to the testator’s nephews rather than to the charities he had favored. The California Supreme Court held that an unambiguous will may be reformed if clear and convincing evidence establishes both that the will when drafted contained a mistake in the expression of the testator's intent and that the testator's actual specific intent at the time of drafting is known. The case was remanded to the trial court for the charities to present evidence of the testator’s intent.