Bernstein's documented origins lie in the American university system. He completed his undergraduate education at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, before studying law in Massachusetts, the state where he later built his legal career.
Bernstein completed a Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude at Duke University in 1985 and a Juris Doctor cum laude at Boston College Law School in 1988. Duke's origins reach back to Brown's Schoolhouse, opened in Randolph County, North Carolina, in 1838. The institution became Trinity College in 1859 through its affiliation with the Methodist Church, moved to Durham in 1892, and was renamed Duke University in 1924 to honor the family of Washington Duke after the Duke Endowment supported the institution.
Boston College Law School was founded in 1929 as the first graduate program of Boston College and opened in a downtown Boston office building before moving to Chestnut Hill in 1954. It received American Bar Association accreditation in 1932. The law school moved to the Newton campus in August 1975, so it was based there during Bernstein's studies. Its education was grounded in the Jesuit, Catholic tradition of Boston College. While at the school, Bernstein served on the Boston College Law Review.
Bernstein's legal career began in 1988, when he was licensed in Massachusetts and started practicing health law in Boston. He was later admitted to the District of Columbia bar in 1990 and the California bar in 1995, and his California license later became inactive.
During part of his practice he worked in Palo Alto, California, where he provided on-site counsel to Stanford University Medical Center. Stanford is a private research university founded in 1885 near Palo Alto, and its medical center combines clinical care with biomedical research and medical education.
Bernstein is a partner in the Boston office of McDermott Will & Schulte, a firm that began in Chicago in 1934 as a tax practice founded by Edward H. McDermott and William M. Emery. A corporate department was added in 1941 when Howard A. Will joined, and the firm later expanded to many offices. It merged with Schulte Roth & Zabel in 2025 and took its current name, while earlier materials refer to it as McDermott Will & Emery.
He heads the firm's Health Industry Advisory Practice Group. His work covers e-health, electronic health records, HIPAA, and health-related uses of information, as well as private equity and venture investments, mergers and affiliations involving technology companies, hospitals and physicians. HIPAA refers to the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, which sets privacy and security rules for health information. His clients have included academic medical centers, hospitals, physician groups, pharmaceutical and device companies, and venture capital and private equity firms.
Bernstein is a member of the American Health Lawyers Association, a national professional organization of attorneys who practice health law. The association brings together lawyers working on the regulatory, transactional and advisory questions that arise in the health care industry.
He also serves on the board of Jewish Family & Children's Service, a Boston-area social service agency, and is a member of its Disabilities Advisory Committee.
Quotes from others about the person
Clients quoted in a legal directory profile describe Bernstein as "an outstanding healthcare attorney" and praise his negotiation skills and his work in data privacy and technology.
Bernstein and his wife, Leslie, live in Newton, Massachusetts, and have two daughters.
