Bruce Lee Silverstein was elected to the City Council in the 2020 General Municipal Election. Councilmember Silverstein’s term will expire when the City Council is presented with the results of the 2024 General Municipal Election. He was elected Mayor in December 2022 after being elected in April 2021, and February 2022 to serve two terms as Mayor Pro Tem.
Mayor \Silverstein is an attorney, admitted to practice law in both California and Delaware, and in various federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court. Mayor Silverstein graduated Cum Laude from Villanova Law School, where he graduated among the top 10 students in the Class of 1986, was a Member and Editor of the Law Review, and earned membership in the Order of the Coif. Mayor Silverstein practiced law for 30 years with the law firm of Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor LLC, where he was a Partner and Member of the firm’s Management Committee when he left the firm in 2016.
Mayor Silverstein was identified as one of the top 500 lawyers in the United States by Law Dragon in 2009, and before moving to Malibu was routinely recognized as one of Delaware’s leading commercial and corporate litigators by The Best Lawyers in America, and as one of Delaware’s leading business litigators by Delaware Super Lawyers.
Mayor Silverstein has served as lead counsel in multiple high-profile corporate matters, with substantial involvement in every stage of the litigation, at both the trial and appellate levels, including substantial participation in more than 20 appeals before the Delaware Supreme Court. He has actively participated in hundreds of matters, including matters that produced nearly 150 written judicial opinions, of which more than 50 were formally published.
Mayor Silverstein has participated in numerous meetings of Boards of Directors and Special Committees of public companies, including companies appearing on the Fortune 100 and Fortune 500. He has advised directors, officers, and general partners in connection with various aspects of a wide variety of major transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, and related matters. Mayor Silverstein also had participated in internal investigations of alleged wrongdoing, including leading one such investigation at a company appearing on the Fortune 100.
Mayor Silverstein has been court-appointed to serve as a discovery master, a custodian/receiver of a company with a dysfunctional board of directors, and as counsel for multiple court-appointed receivers/custodians. He also has served as a Member of the Board of Advisors for the Institute of Law and Economics (a joint program of the Wharton School and Law School of the University of Pennsylvania), a Member of the Corporate Council of the Delaware Bar Association, and an Associate Member of the Delaware Board of Bar Examiners. Mayor Silverstein is the Co-Author of a publication titled “Deal Protection Devices,” which is published by Bloomberg Law, the author of multiple Law Review Articles, and has been a Contributing Editor to “Business Valuation Resources." He also has been a speaker and a moderator at various local and national conferences on matters of corporate law and legal ethics.
After the Woolsey Fire roared through Malibu on November 9, 2018, Mayor Silverstein became a community activist for the benefit of Malibu residents, and appeared often before the City Council in support of various causes before running for a seat on the City Council in 2020. Among other things, Mayor Silverstein conceived, organized, and led the “Lawyer Project” of “Operation Recovery,” which facilitated a material reduction in the legal fees charged by most law firms representing community members who suffered losses in the Woolsey Fire, and which is anticipated to result in savings well in excess of $100 million to members of the community who have sued Southern California Edison for damages caused by the Woolsey Fire. Mayor Silverstein is active on social media, which he uses to communicate with members of the community.
Mayor Silverstein and Mindy Silverstein met in college and were married in 1982. They have two adult sons, Louis and Nolan, who they love and adore. Bruce and Mindy also have the honor of living with an amazing German Shepherd dog, Rain-Bu, who is Mindy's "Service Animal," a legal designation pursuant to the Americans With Disabilities Act, which is misunderstood by many members of the public and which Mayor Silverstein hopes to make the object of greater public awareness and understanding. Before moving to Malibu, Mayor Silverstein and his family lived in Delaware for 30 years, and Mr. Silverstein was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which is sometimes called the “Cradle of Liberty” – to which he attributes his commitment to Transparency, Fairness and Justice.