Lisa Perrochet

Perrochet happily declares that she works on appeals “all day and every day.” With her name on more than 100 published appellate opinions, she is an active participant within the ever-shifting trends in the law.

“What I do tends to follow the cause of action du jour,” she said. “If there’s an area of the law that has a whole lot of open issues yet to be decided, that’s when people get in touch with me and my firm.”

Over her career, she has seen waves of medical malpractice cases, followed by unfair competition issues and asbestos cases.

These days, surprisingly, lemon law cases have become common. That litigation has exploded recently as plaintiffs’ attorneys have found ways to include fraud claims and demands for punitive damages, she said.

“There’s creativity involved, and then that’s where I come in.”

Perrochet won an appeal in February reversing a jury verdict for a woman claiming breach of warranty on a used car after the warranty expired. The case involved “a wonky question of statutory construction,” she said. Nunez v. FCA US LLC, B297453 (Cal. App. 2nd Dist. Feb. 25, 2021).

She represented Ford in another lemon law case that turned on California and U.S. Supreme Court rules for tolling statutes of limitations. Montoya v. Ford Motor Co., 46 Cal.App.5th 493 (Cal. App. 4th Dist. March 12, 2020)

“That’s kind of an appellate lawyer’s dream when you get to delve into these principles of the interplay between state and federal law,” she said.

Perrochet sees a new trend in appellate law on the way: legal marijuana. That will be fun, she said, because there aren’t many precedents yet. “You have to look for analogies to other areas,” she said. “I just love that part of it.”

She and a colleague recently scored a published opinion reversing a jury verdict in a case asking whether a license to operate a dispensary is property. Holistic Supplements LLC v. Stark, B300711 (Cal. App. 2nd Dist. March 02, 2021).

“That’s why it’s so fun to be an appellate lawyer,” Perrochet said. “You get to ride the wave of these really interesting legal issues.”

— Don DeBenedictis