PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY
Kerry R. Bensinger is a founding member of the firm and practices both criminal and civil litigation. He has an extensive and successful background in criminal defense at both the state and federal level, and is the firm’s lead attorney for trial and appellate work in both civil and criminal cases.

EXPERIENCE
Kerry R. Bensinger is a 1982 graduate of Yale University and a 1987 graduate of the University of Southern California Law School. During law school, he served as an extern to the Honorable David V. Kenyon, Federal District Court Judge for the Central District of California. He participated in USC law school’s Hale Moot Court Honors Program, where he won the best Oral Advocate Award and honorable mention for Best Appellant Brief. He also won the Miller Johnson Equal Justice Award, and the Judge Barry Russell Federal Bar Association Award for Excellence in the Field of Federal Practice.

After graduation from law school, Mr. Bensinger joined the Office of the Federal Public Defender where he tried federal criminal cases for three years as a Deputy Federal Public Defender in Los Angeles. In 1991, Mr. Bensinger left the Federal Public Defender’s Office and joined the law firm of Quinn, Kully & Morrow, where he handled a wide range of both civil and criminal matters. Mr. Bensinger litigated civil cases involving securities law, commercial transactions, construction defects, civil rights, and employment law as well as False Claims Act qui tam suits. With respect to criminal cases, Mr. Bensinger represented individuals and entities being investigated for and charged with white-collar crimes, fraud (mail, bank, health care) extortion, RICO, money laundering, embezzlement and narcotics offenses. Mr. Bensinger also represented individuals charged with capital offenses in their federal habeas corpus proceedings.

Mr. Bensinger has tried nearly two dozen criminal and civil cases, before judges and juries in both the state and federal systems. He has appeared before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals more than a half dozen times, and has been successful in obtaining favorable results for his clients in nearly all of them.

Since 1995, Mr. Bensinger’s practice has continued to concentrate in the areas of criminal defense and business litigation.

EDUCATION

• University of Southern California Law Center (J.D. 1987); Top 15% of class; Co-Founder and Student Director of the Public Interest and Poverty Law Clinic
• Yale University (B.A. English, 1982); LBJ Scholar; Honors in Playwriting; Honors in Art History; Varsity Football and Track

FACULTY

• Taught trial advocacy at Loyola Law School in 1999, 2000.
• Taught at the annual Capital Case Defense Seminar, held in Monterey, California, in 1998, 1999, 2000.

PUBLICATIONS

• Lead Article-From Public Charity to Social Justice: The Role of the Court in California’s General Relief Program, 21 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review Vol. 11, December 1987.
• Co-Author: "Bribery" Chapter in West’s California Criminal Law Treatise.

BAR ADMISSIONS

• California State Bar: Admitted 1987
• U.S. District Court, Central District of California: Admitted 1987
• U.S. District Court, Southern District of California: Admitted 2001
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit: Admitted 1987
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit: Admitted 2002

BAR ACTIVITIES

• Appointed to Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Pro Bono Council, Law Enforcement and Justice Committee, Judicial Election Evaluation Committee, and the 1992 Kolts Commission investigating use of excessive force in Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Mr. Bensinger is a member of the Federal Indigent Defense Panel for the Central District of California.