Leib M. Lerner

• National bankruptcy counsel for a leading hotel franchisor. 
• Obtained summary judgment in favor of an insurer client in bad faith coverage litigation.
• Convinced the court to award adequate protection payments to a junior lienholder in a contested matter involving multiple cross-collateralized properties and secured parties.
• Represented a major petroleum company against an attack on a bankruptcy asset sale through state and federal trial and appellate court proceedings.
• Represents solar panel industry clients in multimillion-dollar commercial code disputes.
• Defeated assignment for the benefit of creditors assignor in a $2 million preference action. The lawsuit was dismissed at the district court level and affirmed by the Ninth Circuit, and the plaintiff’s appeal was denied certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court.
• Represented the unsecured creditors’ committee in Chapter 11 cases filed by five nursing care and assisted living facilities under the lead case of Pasadena Health Care Management, Inc.
• Represented the unsecured creditors’ committee in a Chapter 11 case filed by Orange County Nursery, Inc.
• Lead counsel in bankruptcy claim litigation resulting in the reduction after trial of a $4.4 million nonpracticing entity patent claim to approximately $16,000.
• Guided the successful multi-million dollar asset sale of an industrial parts manufacturer to Learjet, Inc.
• Obtained a defense verdict in a jury trial for a private school defending against a seven-figure discrimination claim.
• Received the Religious Liberty Award from the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, together with partner Jon Gordon and associate Cassandra Hooks, for the representation of a religious Sikh in the civil rights case Basra v. Cate, resulting in the successful change of California state law to permit prisoners to grow uncut beards.

Leib Lerner is a partner in the firm’s Los Angeles office who focuses his practice on representing franchisors, lenders, creditors’ committees, avoidance action defendants, landlords, vendors and investors involved in bankruptcy and insolvency cases across the nation. In addition to his extensive bankruptcy work, Leib regularly represents corporations and individuals in complex federal and state commercial litigation. He currently serves as an advisor to the California Lawyers Association Business Law Section Insolvency Law Committee.

Leib received his B.R.S. from Rabbinical College of America in 1991 and his J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2003. During law school, Leib served as an editor on the UCLA Law Review, was a judicial extern for the Honorable Thomas B. Donovan, U.S. bankruptcy judge for the Central District of California, and won the 2002 American Bar Association Section of Business Law Mendes Hershman Student Writing Contest.

Bar Admissions

• California
• District of Columbia
• Pennsylvania

Education

• University of California, Los Angeles (J.D., 2003)
• Rabbinical College of America (B.R.S., 1991)

Memberships