NOTRE DAME FIGHTS FOR SECOND CHANCES — BUT WHAT ABOUT ITS OWN GRADUATES?

This 1983 Domer, Doug Bernacchi (pictured above) is still fighting solo for a second chance...nowhere is his alma mater in that fight?

NOTRE DAME FIGHTS FOR SECOND CHANCES. WHO FIGHTS FOR ITS OWN GRADUATES?

Indiana’s legal establishment, Notre Dame’s national reputation, and the unanswered questions about professional licensing in Indianapolis, Indiana.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Millions of Americans watching Notre Dame football are familiar with the university’s inspirational What Would You Fight For?  television campaign.

Its message about second chances this year celebrates the opportunity to rebuild lives after serious setbacks.

But the university’s commitment raises a question closer to home: What happens when a Notre Dame graduate needs that same opportunity? They are conspicuously silent and absent from the fight! Curious?

Notre Dame Law School educates attorneys for a national legal market. Its graduates pursue careers in Chicago, New York, Washington, Los Angeles and across the country. The university’s own employment materials describe those cities as major destinations for its graduates. Indiana may be Notre Dame’s home, but its law school is hardly a provincial institution. One ND Alumn from the community decided to stay put and help his community where his family was deeply rooted, so it seemed once.

HE reporter, Gregg Smith, reached out to Bernacchi by telephone on Saturday during the football game with the University of North Carolina after seeing the advertisement air and to investigate this article, and Bernacchi confirmed this story.

Bernacchi, an ND Alumn and Indiana lawyer of 28 years was suspended for one year. but still has no Indiana law license nearly 9 years later. What kind of second chance is that? Here in Indiana there hasn't been a "second chance" for this Notre Dame Graduate?

Bernacchi said yes I saw the add too, and "I love ND, Susan and I were married there on campus, but I did not even do anything wrogn and so we don't come to Indiana to even watch a game these days. We almost went to the UNC Game today. We have a daughter who is a Tar Heel Grad., and our son and his wife and granddauther live in Raliegh, but I have moved on with my career now here in Darien, Connecticut where I am member of the Darien Ethics Commission and serve in the town's legislature assigned to the powerful Finance and Budget Committee. I am busy and on the ballot again this fall." So, he settled on watching C.J. Carr and company on the the television.

He added, "I won't be in back Indiana until that state apologizes to me and my family."

Clearly, he is not holding his breathe for that development, and he was "glad ND fights for second changes, IN THEORY."

Bernacchi once ran for US Congress in Indiana in 1992 in the district where the University of Notre Dame is located and had a successful career, family, and community life until he was attacked with legal ethics court abuse, known as "lawfare" by Loretta Rush's court staff.

Indiana’s legal establishment has its own institutional connections. Chief Justice Loretta Rush graduated from Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law in 1983 and has served on its Board of Visitors. Her undergraduate degree was from Purdue, who ND trounced last week on the gridiron. She also supervises the state’s judicial branch, whose administrative responsibilities include attorney admission and discipline. That function has been a disaster under her "reign of terror" as many lawyers call it.

Rush has ignored the injustice of the DICase against Granger Lawyer Doug Bernacchi, MBA, JD, and so has Notre Dame where he graduated in 1983 with his ND MBA degree.

ND MBA and Granger Indiana Lawyer, who was suspended in 2017, and never got a second chance in St. Joseph county after losing a close race for Circuit Court Judge in 2016, only then to face “lawfare” in Indiana leading to a 1-year suspension. Right.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1FYjj2S71s/?mibextid=wwXIfrWhat justice for him is not worth fighting for?

See prior HE article https://www.facebook.com/share/1FYjj2S71s/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Those relationships are legitimate. But they invite broader questions about institutional influence, the diversity of perspectives within Indiana’s legal leadership and the treatment of attorneys who challenge the state’s disciplinary machinery.

Notre Dame should have something meaningful to contribute to that discussion.

Indiana’s attorney-disciplinary system possesses enormous authority over professional livelihoods. Suspension or disbarment can end a career, destroy a practice and impose lasting financial consequences.

Also, click on the most read article published by HE on this case: https://www.hoosierenquirer.com/post/revisiting-a-questionable-ethics-case-v-former-hoosier-lawyer-doug-bernacchi?fbclid=IwY2xjawUuPvNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBwZG9mBWJyaWQRMWZKZERTUDJyc1hDMHBicWNzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeM7IbVst5etqk3zVnawrakBTmSkRvkSPxULiYC-POprKagmxytYYHuXuYVMc_aem_SynssMRbXjcsl94q31BCig

Even attorneys, like Bernacchi, who are many in the state, and who maintain that their proceedings were unfair, like Bernacchi pictured above, must navigate demanding legal procedures to challenge disciplinary decisions or pursue reinstatement.

Meanwhile, Notre Dame’s legal clinic refuses to fight for a “second chance” or for his ro their Constitutional protections! Civil rights law professors who are lawyers don't even return his calls for help or advice on where to turn. So to him and others seeking a second chance. the this Notre Dame football season's what-would-you-fight for?-advertisement seems disingenuous at best.

The system must protect the public from misconduct but it needs reform and Notre Dame could help do that. And so, it is completely hypocritical for Notre Dame to run their current ads when in fact they are lie too.

Indiana Supreme Court and Notre Dame Law must also fight to provide fair hearings, proportional sanctions, and meaningful opportunities for rehabilitation, and quit the show trials and selective attacks on conservative lawyers. Currently, only drug or drug using lawyers get a break, while others like Bernacchi are canceled as part of the "cancel culture" cancer under Chief Justice Loretta Rush, a DEI appointment herself. IU lawyers seem to have cover and more complaints are dismissed than investigated calling out for reform, like Doug's law which HE has endorsed, and which former Democrat State Rep. Scott Pelath once introduced in the Indiana General Assembly.

Legal ethics principles should not depend on where an attorney attended law school, whom the attorney knows or whether the attorney has influential institutional supporters, but in the merits not coherced confession or face perjury charges after being offered plea bargains that was used to trap Bernacchi and others under CJ Rush’s failed leadership of the courts in Indiana.

She has been completely out-of-touch with her adopted state, and many state leaders want her to resign today. She has overstayed her DEI appointment and welcome into the State House, where she self-described herself recently as the old person there.

Indiana's 3-term Chief Justice Loretta Rush from Tippycanoe County, Indiana

Nor should universities remain indifferent to questions about the fairness of professional regulation simply because the affected graduates are no longer paying tuition.

Notre Dame has the faculty expertise, national alumni network and Catholic intellectual tradition to contribute substantially to debates over attorney discipline, due process and professional redemption. It could establish an independent alumni-assistance initiative, sponsor research examining disciplinary procedures or provide referrals to attorneys pursuing lawful reinstatement.

None of those activities would require the university to defend misconduct or interfere with judicial independence.

The question is whether Notre Dame considers professional rehabilitation an institutional priority when its own graduates are involved.

Rush’s relationship with Indiana University does not establish favoritism against Notre Dame graduates. Nor has a comprehensive examination established how Notre Dame responds to alumni requesting assistance in disciplinary matters. Both subjects deserve documentation rather than assumptions.

Nevertheless, the concentration of professional and institutional relationships within Indiana’s legal establishment makes transparency particularly important. The public should know how disciplinary officials are selected, what safeguards prevent conflicts of interest and whether reinstatement procedures provide realistic opportunities for qualified attorneys to resume their careers.

Notre Dame’s national reputation gives it an opportunity to contribute an independent perspective to those questions.

The university advertises compassion, justice and second chances to a national audience. Its law school should be equally prepared to explain what those principles mean for graduates whose professional lives have been disrupted.

That is a question worth asking during football season and long after the final whistle. Are they talking about second chances for pediphiles? For priets? Or the Church? Or illegal aliens?

Notre Dame tells America what it fights for.

Its own graduates deserve to know whether professional re-licensing is part of that commitment, especially where due process was denied.