Mr. Bernstein is a member of Davis Polk & Wardwell’s Corporate Department and heads the firm’s Insolvency and Restructuring Practice Group. He represents creditors, debtors, liquidators, receivers, indenture trustees and acquirers in major corporate restructurings and Chapter 11 cases. He also advises financial institutions and other clients regarding credit risks involved in derivatives, securities transactions, and other domestic and international financial transactions. His representation emphasizes the corporate, strategic and financial aspects of restructuring, recapitalizing, buying and selling troubled businesses.

He has represented major creditors or official creditors’ committees in many bankruptcies and restructurings, including those of Delphi, Refco, Enron, Conseco, Adelphia, Bethlehem Steel, C-BASS, Polaroid, McLeodUSA, Dow Corning, Memorex Telex, R.H. Macy, Morrison-Knudsen, Drexel Burnham Lambert, Crown Paper, U.S. Office Products and Toshoku America. He has represented the debtors, liquidators or receivers in insolvency proceedings involving Manville, LTV, Allis-Chalmers, Lomas Financial, L.J. Hooker and Princeton Economics/Cresvale International. He also counsels a number of global financial institutions with respect to multi-jurisdictional risk management.

Mr. Bernstein joined Davis Polk in 1978 and became a partner in 1986.

He graduated from Princeton University in 1975 and received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1978.

Mr. Bernstein is Chair of the National Bankruptcy Conference, a group of 60 leading lawyers, law professors and judges that advises Congress on bankruptcy legislation. He is also a member of the American College of Bankruptcy, where he is a director, and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, where he has chaired the Committee on Bankruptcy and Corporate Reorganization. He is a founding director of the International Insolvency Institute; a member of the New York County Lawyers Association, where he has served on the board of directors; and Co-Chair of the TriBar Opinion Committee. His membership in the American Bar Association includes serving on the Business Bankruptcy Committee and the Committee on Legal Opinions. He also is a member of INSOL International, where he is co-chair of the G-36 Committee, is a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute and has been a member of the Official U.S. Delegation to the Insolvency Working Group of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).

Mr. Bernstein is on the board of editors of and a contributor to Collier on Bankruptcy and was the co-reporter for the TriBar Opinion Committee’s Special Report, “Opinions in the Bankruptcy Context.” Recent publications include “Absolute Priority, Valuation Uncertainty and the Reorganization Bargain” (with Professor Douglas G. Baird), 115 Yale L.J. 1930 (2006) and “A Reorganization Lawyer’s Perspective on Professor Warren’s Vanishing Trials,” 79 Am Bankr. L.J. 943 (2006). He is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University School of Law (2008).

Mr. Bernstein was named one of the top 100 lawyers in New York in the SuperLawyers 2007 survey, and he is listed as a leading lawyer in numerous other industry publications, including Chambers Global: Leaders in Their Field (2008, 2006-07) and Chambers USA (2007); Legal Media Group’s Expert Guide to the World's Leading Lawyers – Best of the Best (2008, 2006) and Expert Guide to the World’s Leading Insolvency & Restructuring Lawyers (2007); Law Business Research’s Who’s Who Legal – International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers (2008 Compendium Volume) and Who’s Who Legal – International Who’s Who of Insolvency and Restructuring Lawyers (2007); American Lawyer Media’s Corporate Counsel: Annual Guide to the Bankruptcy and Creditor-Debtor Rights Law (2008) and IFLR1000: The Guide to the World’s Leading Financial Law Firms (2007).