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Gerald Gamliel Weisbach, Esq., FAIA

Gerald Gamliel Weisbach, Esq., F.A.I.A., built the first phase of his career as a practicing architect and architectural educator. He earned his A.B. in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, College of Architecture in 1954, then worked in the offices of leading modernist architects, including Richard Neutra, Raphael Soriano, John Carl Warnecke, and Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons, from 1954 to 1960. He established his own architectural practice from 1960 to 1968, completing a wide range of public and private commissions in residential, commercial, and institutional design, before serving as Vice President and Director of Building Systems Development, Inc. from 1968 to 1972, overseeing contract formation and administration of research and development programs in the public and private sectors. Alongside this practice, he built a parallel career in architectural education, serving as a faculty member of the University of California from 1964 to 1972, teaching design and construction systems. During that appointment, he spent 1968 to 1969 as a guest lecturer in Graduate Design at the Bartlett College, University College London, through a professor exchange program between the two institutions. He went on to serve as Dean and Professor of the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California from 1972 to 1975, and later as Visiting Professor of Professional Practice at UCLA's Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design in 1993–1994.

Beginning in 1978, upon earning his J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of Law, Mr. Weisbach shifted his career to the law and consulting practice governing design professionals, alongside sustained academic and professional engagement on construction law and liability. From 1978 to 1981, he worked as an attorney and consulting architect providing professional liability and dispute resolution consultation to design professionals, while concurrently serving as Vice President of Design Professionals Insurance Company, responsible for contract review, negotiation, and loss prevention programs. He became a partner at Natkin, Weisbach and Higginbotham, P.C. from 1983 to 1995, and later a partner at Long & Levit, LLP from 1995 to 1999, both firms providing comprehensive legal services to architects and engineers. From 1999 to 2009, he served as a neutral arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association, resolving construction and professional liability disputes. Throughout this period, he delivered more than one hundred lectures and seminars to construction and design industry organizations on loss prevention, professional liability, construction defect litigation, contract formation and negotiation, the design/build process, copyrights, and mechanics and design professional liens. 

A Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, he has served as President of the California State Board of Architectural Examiners, Vice Chair of the NCARB R5C Steering Committee, and a member of the AIA Life Safety Task Force and NAAB Accrediting Teams, with his work featured in publications including Architectural Record, Arts and Architecture, and Architectural Design (UK).