Catherine A. Bernard

Catherine maintains an active pro bono practice representing refugees in asylum proceedings and sits on the Legal Advisory Committee for the Capital Area Immigrants' Rights (CAIR) Coalition. In 2019, she was named Mayer Brown’s Pro Bono Attorney of the Year in recognition of the 1600+ hours she had spent representing asylees from El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, Pakistan, and Zimbabwe. That same year, she was part of a team honored with CAIR Coalition’s Detained Adult Champion award. In 2018, she was Tahirih Justice Center’s Greater DC Pro Bono Attorney of the Year.

In her previous role as Counsel, Catherine’s practice focused on complex commercial litigation in federal and state courts, with a focus on securities and regulatory matters involving financial institutions and financial products. Her experience includes the defense of multiple major financial institutions in lawsuits brought throughout the US by purchasers and trustees of mortgage-backed securities offerings. She has also litigated matters involving commercial fraud and other business torts, banking regulation, internal investigations, consumer class actions, ERISA, cybersecurity and data privacy, professional liability, complex e-discovery, and privilege issues. Catherine was selected by the Super Lawyers rating service as a “Super Lawyer” in Commercial and Securities Litigation in 2014, 2015, and 2016.

Catherine joined Mayer Brown in 2005 from another global law firm in Washington, DC, and took the position of US Litigation Professional Support Lawyer in 2016. From 2002 through 2003, she served as law clerk to the Honorable John P. Wiese of the United States Court of Federal Claims.

• Representation of a nonprofit family foundation in a federal court dispute related to its support of a landmark class action lawsuit against the US government for breach of trust duties to thousands of individual Native Americans.

• Counseling of a global property and casualty insurer on interpretation and application of the federal securities laws in connection with coverage for claims related to the Madoff Ponzi scheme.

• Representation of a global financial institution in connection with a DOJ investigation into alleged FIRREA and False Claims Act violations.
• Defense of a financial institution in a $2 billion federal lawsuit related to the collapse of Global Crossing Ltd. Secured dismissal with prejudice of several claims and settled the remainder for favorable terms at close of discovery.
• Defense of a multinational life insurance company in cases alleging federal securities law violations and consumer fraud in the marketing and sale of variable annuities.
• Defense of a major home lender in California federal court against claims that mortgage servicing practices breached contractual and common law duties to loan purchaser.
• Representation of a well-known R&B performer in Illinois federal and state court lawsuits seeking 50% of the profits generated by several successful musical works.
• Defense of an asset manager in an Enron-related ERISA lawsuit in Illinois federal court. Settled on favorable terms on the first day of trial.
• Defense of a multinational computer technology corporation and three of its senior executives in shareholder derivative and insider trading litigation in Delaware federal court.
• Counseling of a US bank's outside directors in dual OCC and DOJ investigations into Bank Secrecy Act and money-laundering violations; although bank was subjected to more than $40 million in fines, outside directors were cleared of any misconduct.

• Human Rights First, Volunteer Attorney
• Children's Law Center, Volunteer Attorney