About Catherine
Catherine Lerer earned a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1987 and completed her J.D. at Whittier Law School in 1993. Her law school years included practical work inside city government, a common early step for lawyers who plan courtroom work later. That experience came in 1992 when she served as a law clerk at the Los Angeles City Lawyer’s Office.
After law school she moved into private practice. In 1994 she joined the Law Offices of Harvey L. Lerer as a lawyer. That period allowed her to develop courtroom technique and client handling in a smaller office setting. In 2003 she became owner of McGee, Lerer & Associates, the firm that bears her name and where she has practiced since. The firm appears as her principal office throughout her professional timeline.
Lerer’s professional memberships trace back to the start of her legal career. She has been a member of the Consumer Lawyers Association of Los Angeles since 1993. She belonged to the West Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce from 1993 until 2003, and she was part of the Santa Monica Bar Association from 1995 to 1998. More recently she joined the Los Angeles Trial Lawyers Charities Honorary Board of Governors in 2014, a role she maintains.
Colleagues and clients have described her as methodical in the courtroom and attentive in preparation. Her background combines municipal law experience from her clerkship with years in private practice. That combination has shaped how she approaches case work and negotiations. She has handled matters originating in Los Angeles and the surrounding counties and has maintained steady involvement in local legal communities through association memberships.
Her work has been rooted in litigation and courtroom advocacy. Over the years she has taken cases through preparation, motion practice and trial phases. She is comfortable in the procedural work that precedes trial and in presenting arguments to judges and juries when cases proceed that far.
She continues to practice at McGee, Lerer & Associates in California, where her work centers on litigation and trial representation for clients in state courts.
