An immigrant from the former Soviet Union, attorney Leonid (better known as Lonny) Zilberman, says he is “truly living the American dream.”

That enthusiasm shows in all he does, from his work as an employment law specialist to his volunteer activities. He is one of four male partners at Wilson Petty Kosmo & Turner, San Diego’s largest woman-owned law firm. In that position, he says, he serves as a counselor, trainer and defender for employers.

“An important part of my job,” he says, “is to assist my clients in doing the right thing.”

Zilberman, 39, is active in the San Diego County Bar Association as co-chair of its labor and employment section, and was the only San Diegan elected to a three-year term on the executive committee of the State Bar’s Labor and Employment section. He is a regular columnist for the Los Angeles edition of the state law newspaper Daily Journal.

Zilberman has been in the United States since 1974, and he credits his parents for maintaining his fluency in Russian. He and his wife, Christie, an in-house attorney at SAIC, have two children — Sam is almost 7 and Sophia is 4 — and a mutt named Benny.