The Honorable Patricia Bernstein (retired) received her B.A. degree from Connecticut College and her J.D. from Boston College Law School in 1976. Since law school graduation, she has held positions in all three branches of state government.
Judge Bernstein served as a legislative counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee for the Massachusetts Senate in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She then served as an Assistant District Attorney for Middlesex County from 1981 to 1988. In 1988, Judge Bernstein became a member of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, first as an Assistant Attorney General and then as Chief of the Public Integrity Division and Chief Prosecutor for the Public Protection Bureau.
From 1994 to 2015, Judge Bernstein served as Associate Justice of the Boston Municipal Court (BMC). She was appointed as the Adjunct Administrative Justice of the BMC Department from 2005-2010. During that time, she assisted in the development of the first specialized mental health court session in the Commonwealth and presided over that session in the Central Division of the BMC from 2007 until 2015.
In addition, Judge Bernstein was a member of the Trial Court’s Committee on Specialty Courts and ADR Implementation Committee. Starting in 2009, she was a member of the first group of judges to become mentors in the Trial Court’s peer-to-peer judge mentorship program. Judge Bernstein is currently a mediator and arbitrator.
Judge Bernstein will work with the Justice Bridge Legal Center at the University of Massachusetts School of Law in its Boston office. Justice Bridge is a legal incubator that provides start-up assistance and resources to newly admitted lawyers to help them provide much-needed reduced-fee legal services to modest income clients. Judge Bernstein will be a mentor to recent law school graduates at Justice Bridge.