September / october 2006:

The Six Who Matter: Richard Bernstein
A man with no sight is not lacking a vision.

Words by Tina Barry | Photograph by Sam Norval

Danny Kaufman Saranne Rothberg Gavriel Garrard Stephanie Stein Richard Bernstein Haviva Kohl

Richard Bernstein knows how to make an entrance. Seconds after his arrival at a Greenwich Village café, Bernstein exclaims, “This place is great!” “Everyone here is so nice!” comments that cause the jaded wait-staff, used to ignoring celebrities like Hilary Swank and Sting, to gather around offering greetings and an escort to his seat.

That joyous expression of praise comes easily to Bernstein, a trial attorney from Farmington Hills, Michigan, who handles personal injury and discrimination cases. In the space of less than 10 minutes after we get seated, Bernstein marvels at the “energy” of New York; my “so cool” career which he questions me about relentlessly; and what he considers the great gifts in his life: Blindness and a supportive family with financial resources.

“I really do see my blindness as a gift,” Bernstein says. “85 percent of the blind community is unemployed. They don’t have what I have.” Bernstein graduated summa cum laude from the University of Michigan, and then fought Northwestern University for entrance into their law program. Bernstein refused to take the LSAT (Law School Admissions Test) claiming that his rights as a blind person were violated because the exam included charts and graphs. He won admittance based on his undergraduate achievements and was awarded a Juris Doctor degree in 1999.

“People give God pleasure. And it’s the quiet, gentle people, the kind that are behind the scenes, that make God the happiest,” he says. They’re the individuals that Bernstein feels he’s been put on earth to protect. “Fighting for people with disabilities is spiritual for me. It’s what connects me to God. It’s what I was created to do.” It’s a battle Bernstein is passionate about.

A Detroit case Bernstein recently championed has given him the greatest spiritual gratification. Over lunch recently, the dark haired, 32-year-old dressed casually in a polo shirt and shorts, launches into an impassioned account of the ordeal.

“I went to a meeting and heard from veterans with disabilities, and wheelchair users, people who count on public transportation, that they were waiting six, seven, eight hours for a bus to take them where they needed to go. I learned that the wheelchair lifts on 40 to 50 percent of the busses weren’t functioning, or the drivers didn’t know how to operate them. I was outraged. There are laws designed to protect people with certain limitations, and they were being ignored.”

While handling a full caseload, Bernstein and two attorneys at his law firm worked pro bono for two-and-a-half years on the case. The upshot: The United States Department of Justice became involved and, says Bernstein, “Ultimately the city is fixing everything.” He chose not to bill the city of Detroit for the quarter of a million dollars in legal expenses accrued by his firm. “With all the wrangling it takes for payment, it would hold up the works and that’s what we fought for all along.”

When he’s not waging war on behalf of the underserved, Bernstein teaches “Law and Social Change” to undergraduates at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he’s an adjunct professor. “Teaching students that they can make a difference by grass roots activism, and helping them develop strategies for change is incredibly rewarding for me,” he says. He serves on the Board of Governors of Wayne State University, created and hosts the CBS-Detroit television program Making a Difference, and contributes editorials to the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press.

As if that wasn’t enough, he’s completed three marathons in three states and is training for the Iron Man in Hawaii. He commutes to New York weekly to run with the Achilles Track Club (a group that helps the disabled achieve their physical goals), but not on Saturday. “I’m not especially observant, and I’m not a ritual guy. Still, the spiritual nature of Shabbat is important to me,” he explains. Bernstein, who’s single, enjoys Shabbat dinner with members of the Manhattan Jewish Experience, a group of young Jewish professionals who meet for classes and gather socially.

But it’s his legal work that gives him the most pleasure. “There’s always something to fight for,” he says. “It’s hard work, but when you make a change for the better in someone’s life, it’s worth it.”

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