Bernhard was first admitted to practice law in Maryland, Virginia, District of Columbia, Missouri. From 1991 to 2017 he was in partnership with attorney Cheryl E. Gardner at the law firm of Bernhard & Gardner. In 2005, Bernhard with Gardner, co-founded and until May 2017 co-moderated VADefenses Listserv, a criminal law resource. Bernhard's trial practice included the handling of difficult cases such as a murder case which was only the second instance of a jury trial being televised in the history of the Fairfax Circuit Court, engendering debate as to the circumstances if any under which cameras ought to be allowed in a courtroom. Notable matters he handled include challenging admissibility of certificates of analysis offered without the presence of a technician in DUI prosecutions and confronting problems with enforcement of Northern Virginiatoll roadcivil penalty cases, in each case contributing to the enactment of changes to the Code of Virginia. His appeals include Virginia's first civil Gideon case, a cooperative effort with Clarence M. Dunnaville Jr., culminating in amending legislation expanding the right to counsel; the seminal Benitez decision policing abusive litigation practices; and the Kim opinion, providing a bright line test as to when private property is subject to the traffic laws of Virginia applicable to "statutory highways." Bernhard helped reconstitute, and from 2011 to 2014, was Co-Chair of the Fairfax Bar Criminal Law Practice Section, serving for the last year in collaboration with Michael J. Lindner, for which effort he was recognized with a Fairfax Bar Association President's Award. In 2012 he was named a “Leader in the Law” by Virginia Lawyers Weekly. As a judge, Bernhard has been an early proponent and implementer of developing evidence-based sentencing and pre-trial practices. Similar techniques are already in use by the Virginia Department of Corrections for incarcerated individuals, helping yield the lowest inmate recidivism rate of any state. Bernhard has been in the forefront of the elimination of cash from consideration of whether and under which conditions criminal suspects should be released while awaiting trial. Since assuming office, he has declined to impose discretionary cash or surety bond release conditions on those accused of crimes, persuaded by judicial training he received after his election of the emerging view that such monetary requirements often amount to "wealth-based detention" and do little to ensure public safety in the case of the dangerous, while conversely serving in many instances to unnecessarily incarcerate those whose release poses little adverse risk that can instead be addressed through other pretrial terms. Subsequently, some prosecutors and most notably, the Governor and the Attorney General of Virginia, independently took the position that the cash bond must be reformed as a matter of practicality through a mixture of prosecutorial, judicial and legislative action. Since 2017, Bernhard has exercised judicial discretion to inform jurors during jury selection of the penalty ranges a defendant faces in the context of examining sentencing bias and reducing the chance of mistrials, and has set forth his reasoning for such practice in writing. In 2020, the Virginia General Assembly resolved the controversy of whether juries should be so advised by mandating such disclosure by statute. Bernhard has often addressed matters of first impression in Letter Opinion judicial decisions, which in Virginia constitute persuasive authority. Several of his opinions have led to affirmances by appellate courts. On March 2, 2020, Judge Bernhard was among six candidates from a wider initial candidate pool, interviewed by the Virginia General Assembly as a prerequisite for election to a vacancy on the Court of Appeals of Virginia. Bernhard received top ratings from eight legal bar organizations, including rare unanimity in the vote of "Highly Qualified" from the Virginia State Bar Judicial Evaluation Committee tasked with vetting candidates for the General Assembly. The Virginia Senate and House of Delegates failed to arrive at a consensus candidate potentially leaving future selection of the position in the hands of the Governor.
Notable opinions
Among Bernhard's notable judicial opinions are: determining probation officers may make sentencing recommendations in their reports; applying the writ of fieri facias to establish conversion; analyzing when attorneys' fees are applicable under the "hollow victory" concept; justifying the exercise of the Court's discretion in voir dire to inform jurors of applicable penalty ranges to prevent sentencing bias and mistrials ; analyzing when words of a civilian may make such person a police agent effecting an arrest; evaluating whether a subcontractor in a commercial transaction may be subjected to liability under the Virginia Consumer Protection Act; determining the reach of litigation sanctions to a "represented party" in application of the alter ego doctrine; holding when medical causation testimony is unnecessary to commit the decision as to guilt for a crime to a jury; adopting a partial loan subordination approach for analyzing the impact of liens with a circuity of priority; interpreting the scope of statutory preemption of negligence and conversion claims in the context of a fraudulent wire transfer of funds; determining when declaratory judgment actions may be maintained ancillary to administrative adjudications; finding a governor of a requesting state may act through an agent in extradition proceedings; determining that in judicial proceedings to sell tax delinquent realty the liens against properties subject to sale must be determined by the time of entry of the decree of confirmation of sale; holding a court could not vacate a previously granted nolle prosequi as such grant divested jurisdiction over the criminal offense charged; ruling a grantor-beneficiary could encumber land with an easement in his individual capacity as a partial revocation of the transfer of such estate into a revocable trust; delineating when a residential driveway is subject to prohibition of warrantless arrests thereon; finding an implied-in-fact agreement erased support arrearages; holding "challenger pays" attorneys' fees contract clauses are void as against public policy; determining unlicensed noncommercial lenders are subject to the Virginia Consumer Protection Act, delineating the standard applicable for judicial restoration of gun rights; holding de bene esse depositions may be used in support of summary judgment, determining exercise of reservations of spousal support do not require a showing of material change in circumstances ; holding judicial waiver of jail time in the lower courts is binding in appeals de novo in the circuit courts as a matter of judicial estoppel; finding indigent appellants in unlawful detainer cases could not be required to post bond by the lower courts as a prerequisite for transmitting their appeal to the circuit courts for trial de novo; holding that a detainee in extradition proceedings is entitled to a limited mental health evaluation and restoration of capacity as a matter of due process; delineating when a required probationary condition may be excused for inability to comply; holding that an easement for "ingress and egress" to a body of water and for "use" of a sea wall does not confer riparian rights.
