Although Bernard attended public school from K-8, his family knew that Elyria Catholic would provide a better academic foundation and a stronger disciplinary environment for him when it came time to attend high school. His parents unilaterally told him, “You are going to EC and you have to pay for it!” Bernard paid for his EC education by working as a caddy at Elyria Country Club. He also played on the EC basketball team for Coach Bob Guinta. He has some distinct memories of the “Iron Mike” discipline at EC under Principal Sister St. Michael. After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Political Science from the University of Dayton, Bernard went to University of Michigan Law School, ranked 3rd in the country at the time. He started his law career in a clerkship in the summer of 1981 working 70-80 hours per week on corporate litigation at Jenner & Block in Chicago. During that time, he recalled both his father’s advice, “Work to live, not live to work,” and that of EC teacher Sister Laboure who told him, “Piles of money are not important, it is more important to do something socially useful.” So, Bernard applied for and began to work as a judicial clerk to a U.S. Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He worked the remainder of his career in the U.S. Department of Justice as a trial attorney, as the Cleveland Strike Force Chief, as an Assistant U.S. Attorney when the Strike Force merged into the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and as a supervisory Assistant U.S. Attorney prosecuting cases in organized crime, labor racketeering, public corruption, and appeals.
Bernard earned several U.S. Department of Justice Attorney General’s Distinguished Service and Special Achievement Awards. He was also the recipient of the Elyria Catholic Distinguished Alumni Award in 2005. Bernard is a member of Elyria Catholic's new Sisters of Notre Dame Loyalty Club having given gifts to Elyria Catholic for the last 34 consecutive years. During retirement, Bernard served on the Board of Directors of Ohioans to Stop Executions and still remains active in death penalty abolition efforts. Bernard continues to volunteer at the Open M Free Clinic working to obtain medicines for the poor and also serves as President of the St. Vincent DePaul Society at his parish. Bernard has six siblings, three of whom also graduated from EC. Bernard has been married for 36 years to Patricia and they have three sons and a daughter.