Biography

Jules Bernstein is a Washington, D.C.-based labor lawyer who has advocated for workers’ rights for more than a half-century. He has represented several of the country’s largest labor unions. In 1970, he served as union counsel when 250,000 U.S Postal Service workers went on strike. As a result, they obtained substantial wage increases, the right to collective bargaining and the first of many subsequent negotiated labor contracts. In the 1980s, he sued the Postal Service after discovering that postal employees were not being properly compensated on the job and were not being paid for work performed at home. Following years of litigation, 500,000 postal workers won retroactive wages and damages. While counsel to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, he helped organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. He and his wife, Linda Lipsett, operate a “mom and pop” labor law firm, where they specialize in Fair Labor Standards Act litigation. He serves on the board of directors of the National Labor College, Interfaith Worker Justice and the National Employment Law Project. At Brandeis, he established the Louis D. Brandeis Legacy Fund for Social Justice, which supports Brandeis students, enhances campus life, and promotes the issues of social justice that the former U.S. Supreme Court justice championed throughout his life.  In 2012 the Louis D. Brandeis Legacy Fund for Social Justice provided important funding for the first ‘DEIS Impact, a weeklong “festival of social justice” at Brandeis, and continues to support that successful program, now in its third year. He received the Brandeis Alumni Achievement Award in 2007. Bernstein earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School and his LL.M. in labor law from the New York University Law School.