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 rehabilitation

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 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?

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.

HE reporter, Gregg Smith, reached out to Bernacchi by telephone today, and he confirmed this story. He was suspended for one year but still has no Indiana law license nearly 9 years later. "I love ND, Susan and I were married there on campus, but I don't come to Indiana to even watch a game these days. I almost went to the UNC Game, having a daughter who is a Tar Heel Grad, and my son and his wife live in Raliegh, but I have moved on here in CT where I am member of the Darien Ethics Commission and the town's legislature assigned to the powerful Finance and Budget Committee."

He added, "I won't be in back Indiana until that state appologizes to me and my family." Clearly, he is holding his breathe for that develpment and he was glad ND fights for second changes. Bernacchi also ran for US Congress in Indiana in 1992 in the district where the University of Notre Dame is located.

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. She also supervises the state’s judicial branch, whose administrative responsibilities include attorney admission and discipline.

Rush has ignored the injustice of the DICase against Granger Lawyer Doug Bernacchi and so had 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.

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 who maintain that their proceedings were unfair, like Bernacchi pictured above, must navigate demanding legal procedures to challenge disciplinary decisions or pursue reinstatement. Notre Dsme’s legal clinic refused to fight for a “second chance” or for his Constitutional protections!

The system must protect the public from misconduct. And it is hypocritical for note fame to run their current ads when I fact they 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.

These 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. She has overstayed her DEI appointment.

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.

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.