Jerusalem Fruto Beligan

Jerusalem graduated with high honors (magna cum laude) from the University of California, Riverside in June 1997 with a bachelor of arts in political science and a minor in sociology. He was in the Dean’s Honors List all four years. While at UCR, Jerusalem was invited and became a member of several honor societies: Phi Beta Kappa; Pi Sigma Alpha; and Golden Key National Honor Society. After UCR, Jerusalem attended law school at Southwestern University. While in law school, Jerusalem clerked for the LA District Attorney’s Office (Major Fraud Division) and the LA City Attorney’s Office. Jerusalem obtained his juris doctorate in May 2000 and became a member of the California Bar in December 2000.

After law school, Jerusalem first worked for a defense firm, Schaffer, Lax, McNaughton & Chen, where he was first exposed to class-action litigation. He was a member of the firm’s Construction Defect Team during which he learned a lot about pleadings, written discovery and depositions (both non-expert and expert) in the class context.

After Schaffer, Lax, McNaughton & Chen, Jerusalem joined The Petersen Law Firm—a plaintiff firm focused primarily on the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). This is where he was first exposed to plaintiff work. He and his team represented public and private employees in state and federal court for wage-and-hour violations.

After The Petersen Law Firm, Jerusalem broadended his knowledge and experience in employment class actions when he joined Morey & Upton—a plaintiff firm primarily involved in California wage-and-hour class actions. Here, he continued to sharpen his skills as a class-action litigator.

In August 2009—and leaning on the knowledge and experience he gleaned from working at the above firms—Jerusalem joined Bisnar | Chase and built its Class Action Litigation Department (CALD) from the ground up. Relatively unknown in the class action field, Bisnar | Chase is now well-known in the class action arena and sucessfully litigates both employment and consumer class actions in state and federal court.