Benjamin Lerner is a judge on the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas where he serves in the Trial Division and is responsible for pretrial hearings, including motions and scheduling, in all homicide cases. He also presides over non-jury homicide trials, degree-of-guilt hearings, and decertification hearings.
Judge Lerner serves as an Adviser on the ALI’s Model Penal Code: Sentencing project.
Originally appointed to the Court in 1996, he was elected to his present term in 1999. Prior to joining the bench, Judge Lerner was Of Counsel at the law firm of Dilworth, Paxson in Philadelphia where he concentrated his practice on litigation with emphasis on white collar criminal defense and trial of complex civil cases in both federal and state courts.
From 1975 through 1990, Judge Lerner served as Chief Defender of the Defender Association of Philadelphia in which he represented criminal and juvenile defendants as well as child advocacy and mental health cases. From 1973 until 1975 Judge Lerner served as the Deputy Attorney General in the Pennsylvania Department of Justice’s Office of Criminal Law. He also clerked for the Judge Stanley A. Weigel on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco immediately upon graduating from law school.
EDUCATION: Brandeis University, B.A.; University of Pennsylvania Law School, LL.B.