Dennis Perluss will teach Evidence in Spring 2024 after completing 22 years as a justice of the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District. Prior to his appointment to the appellate court, Perluss served for two years on the Los Angeles Superior Court. Among his judicial branch activities, Perluss for several years chaired the California Judicial Council’s Civil and Small Claims Advisory Committee and co-chaired the Tribal Court-State Court Forum.

Before his judicial career Perluss actively practiced trial and appellate law as a partner in the Los Angeles office of Morrison & Foerster and at Hufstedler & Kaus (a boutique litigation firm), emphasizing securities and other complex financial matters. In 1994-95 he was deputy general counsel of the Independent ("Christopher") Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department. Perluss previously was a visiting professor at the UCLA School of Law teaching Business Associations and a lecturer in law at the USC Law Center teaching Law and the Family.

Perluss received his B.A. (with great distinction) in 1970 from Stanford University and his J.D. (magna cum laude) in 1973 from Harvard Law School, where he was an officer of the Harvard Law Review. Immediately after law school he clerked for Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart.