DJ profiles PJ Perluss

Today's DJ has An Active Justice: In addition to his role as a presiding justice in 2nd District, Dennis M. Perluss has shaped statewide policies.

• top-notch legal thinking is packaged with warmth and kindness toward everyone around him.
• Perluss is known for his thoughtful legal reasoning. 
• "He is a model of what a judge should be," said his Division Seven colleague, Justice Gail Ruderman Feuer, who asked Perluss to swear her in when she was named to the Los Angeles County Superior Court in 2005. "Many justices may be brilliant like him but not necessarily nice and caring people," she said. "That's a special combination."
• Perluss ... is a native Californian born in 1948 in Sacramento. After attending Stanford University, he graduated from Harvard Law School in 1973 and then clerked for 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart. Perluss next worked in private practice for Hufstedler's law firm, which later merged with Morrison & Foerster. ... Perluss was appointed to the Los Angeles County Superior Court in 1999 by Gov. Gray Davis. In 2001, he was under consideration for a vacancy on the California Supreme Court. Instead, the seat went to Carlos Moreno. Perluss was appointed to the 2nd District later that year. He has been presiding justice of Division Seven since January 2003.
• In addition to his work as a justice, Perluss has been extensively involved in the administration of the courts. He served as co-chair for many years on the Tribal Court-State Court Forum, which works to improve proceedings in which the state judicial branch and tribal justice systems have overlapping jurisdiction (and received the council's Distinguished Service Award in 2019 for his efforts). He chaired the working group tasked with implementing Proposition 66, or the Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016, which was aimed at expediting death penalty appeals in the state; and chaired the Civil and Small Claims Advisory Committee, among other appointments.