Colette Magnetta

• Product Liability
• Premises Liability
• Construction Accident
• General Tort Litigation

Colette has been increasingly involved in management of the firm’s law practice in the years since she accepted a shareholder position at Acker & Whipple.  Among her management responsibilities, she is particularly committed to the training and mentoring of the firm’s newer associates. Colette still maintains a litigation practice, however, and her defense work is primarily composed of premises liability, construction cases, product liability, and general tort litigation. Colette is an active member of the Defense Research Institute, the country’s leading organization of defense attorneys and in-house counsel. Colette’s active involvement over the years in DRI’s Litigation Skills Committee, formerly known as the Trial Tactics Committee, included chairing the committee and chairing programs such as the 2013 Trial Tactics Seminar and the 2014 Complex Medicine Seminar. She is also involved in the Law Practice Management Committee.  Colette has been featured in the Leader Spotlight of DRI’s The Voice.  She also accepted a membership invitation to the Claims and Litigation Management Alliance, a nonpartisan alliance committed to furthering the highest standards of litigation management. Colette has been Peer Review Rated as AV Preeminent, the highest category, by Martindale-Hubbell.

Colette earned her J.D. from Tulane University School of Law in 2000, graduating cum laude, after receiving a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of the Pacific. She was admitted to the California State Bar and local United States District Courts in December of that same year. In the earlier part of her law career, Colette actively participated in pro bono activities. She co-developed a Street Law program for the California Youth Authority’s Tools For Success program, in which law students instruct young parolees during a transition period from prison into free society. Colette then worked with Volunteers in Parole to mentor a recently paroled youth. She has also volunteered with L.A. County Bar Association’s Domestic Violence Project. She currently serves on the board of spcaLA.  Her free time, however, is mostly occupied by her two energetic, young children.

• • Defense Research Institute Trials and Tribulations, March 14, 2017. Leadership Notes From the Chair.
  • Defense Research Institute For The Defense, March 2017. Honing Skills to Demonstrate Value.
  • Defense Research Institute, July 2017. The Trial Compendium Foreword

Colette serves as a member of the board of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles, a nonprofit animal welfare organization serving Southern California since 1877.  spcaLA programs and services include Cruelty investigations, Disaster Animal Response Team, Violence Prevention & Humane Education, Animal Safety Net (ASN)™ and a variety of shelter services.