Mitchell Bernard

Mitch Bernard has successfully litigated water, air, toxics, and environmental justice cases against Texaco, Mallinckrodt, Duke Energy, and a variety of government agencies. He is a fellow of the American College of Environmental Lawyers and was recognized by Lawdragon as one of the 500 leading lawyers in the United States for 2019. Bernard served as interim President of NRDC in both 2019 and 2021.

Before joining NRDC, he represented the successful challengers to the Westway highway project in New York. The case is the subject of a 2014 book, Fighting Westway, by Professor William W. Buzbee (Cornell University Press). He also litigated cases for the Coalition for the Homeless, the Association to Benefit Children, and the New York Civil Liberties Union. From 1995 to 1998, as a monitor appointed by U.S. District Judge John S. Martin Jr., Bernard oversaw the creation and implementation of an environmental compliance program at Con Edison. He later conducted environmental investigations as a consultant to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He was counsel to and is now a director of the Association to Benefit Children, a nonprofit that provides services to poor and homeless children and their families in East Harlem.

Bernard is a graduate of Princeton University (Page Prize for Achievements in Creative Writing) and New York University School of Law (Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Fellow, Poses Prize for Law Student Practice). He served as a law clerk in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He also wrote the lyrics for two musicals (Snapshot, The Chosen) that were produced in New York City in the 1980s, both off-Broadway.

State Bar Admissions

New York

Court Admissions

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Supreme Court of the United States