Justin B. Bernstein

Justin Bernstein is a professor and the director of trial advocacy at UCLA School of Law. He is a former president of the American Mock Trial Association and, in 2014, became the youngest person inducted into its Coches Hall of Fame, at age 33. He is the only coach who has won national championships at the high school, college, and law school levels.

Professor Bernstein grew up in San Diego. After earning a perfect score on the SAT, he enrolled at UC Berkeley and joined the Mock Trial team. He earned three All-American Attorney Awards, the highest accolade available to collegiate competitors. At New York University School of Law, he was the first student in school history to win the fall and spring closing argument competitions. He also coached NYU’s undergraduate team to its first appearance at the National Championship Tournament— and, eventually, its first national title.

After law school, Professor Bernstein worked for global law firms— O’Melveny & Myers and Haynes and Boone—where he represented Fortune 500 companies in large, sometimes high-profile, lawsuits. While practicing law, he taught at the University of California, Irvine, for nine years and coached its undergraduate team to back-to-back #1 national rankings.

Professor Bernstein has consulted with dozens of High School Mock Trial teams across the country. More than half the schools that hired him to assist with preparing for the Empire competitions went on to win a national or world championship.

Professor Bernstein has written more than 20 Mock Trial cases and hosted more than 30 Mock Trial competitions. He created Gladiator and Trial by Combat (the first one-on-one Mock Trial tournaments in high school and college history, respectively), the Beach Party tournament (the first bracket style competition in college Mock Trial history), and The Verdict (the first jury trial competition in law school history).

Professor Bernstein’s law school teams have won all three of the most prestigious national tournaments: Tournament of Champions, the National Trial Competition, and the Student Trial Advocacy Competition. In 2020–21, his UCLA teams became the first to win all three in the same season. He was the first coach to win Top Gun (the law school one-on-one national championship) twice. At the time of publication, UCLA Law’s trial team was ranked #1 for the third consecutive season.