Berger Schatz

Debbie K. Lerner is an experienced litigator and compassionate advocate for her clients. Ms. Lerner practices family law exclusively, focusing on complex financial and business issues, custody disputes, prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, and appellate law. In representing her clients, she draws on her strong background in commercial litigation, bankruptcy and appellate law in the federal and state courts of Wisconsin, where she practiced prior to joining Berger Schatz in 1998.

Ms. Lerner is a frequent speaker and panelist on a range of matrimonial and family law topics. For the past two years she has been a presenter at the Annual Lake County Family Law Conferences in Santa Monica, California and Washington, D.C., where she has spoken on subjects such as declaratory judgments in divorce proceedings. She has also published articles on the intersection of law and science, including the area of reproductive technologies.

Ms. Lerner is a member of the American Bar and Illinois State Bar Associations and has been named to the Leading Lawyers Network.

While in law school, Ms. Lerner was recipient of the Sutherland Memorial Scholarship and the Judge Noel Fox Scholarship, and received an American Jurisprudence Award for Dispute Resolution. She served as a member of the Board of Editors for the Marquette Law Review (1991-1992), and attended the Constitutional Law Seminar on Life & Death Issues and the seminar on Parent, Child & State. Upon earning her law degree, Ms. Lerner served as a law clerk to the Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the Honorable Nathan Heffernan, from 1994 to 1995.

Bar Admissions

Ms. Lerner is admitted to practice in Illinois, California, and Wisconsin, and before the United States District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Wisconsin.

Selected Publications

“New Reproductive Technology and Wisconsin Law: Fertility Clinics Making Law,” Marquette Law Review, Fall 1991

Selected Presentations

“Declaratory Judgments in Divorce Proceedings and Postnuptial Agreements in Illinois,” Lake County Domestic Relations Bar Seminar, February 2007