Serena Murillo is a Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court (LASC) presiding over felony trials in the court’s Criminal Division. Her varied experience includes service in the court’s Appellate Division and the Civil Division, where she managed a general unlimited civil court at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse. She has also served as a Justice Pro Tem on the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District.

Judge Murillo is an elected member of LASC’s Executive Committee, leads the court’s Judicial Education Seminars, and is an active and longstanding member of the Judicial Council’s Criminal Law Advisory Committee. She oversees orientation programs for new judges at both the state and local levels and serves as faculty for the B.E. Witkin Judicial College. She is the twice-elected co-chair of the LASC’s Latino Judicial Officers Association and President-Elect of California Women Judges.

She attended Brown University and the University of California, San Diego, where she played NCAA basketball. Judge Murillo earned her law degree from Loyola Law School, where she served on the Executive Board of the Public Interest Law Foundation and trained in bilingual mediation at the Center for Conflict Resolution. She spent 17 years as a prosecutor in Los Angeles County, tried numerous jury trials to verdict, and litigated appellate matters before the California Court of Appeal, the California Supreme Court, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Born in Pomona, California, Judge Murillo is fluent in Spanish.