Profile
Josh Bernstein is a trial lawyer who focuses on labor and employment law, including OSHA safety and health regulatory compliance. He is board certified in personal injury trial law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.
Prior to joining Greenberg Traurig, Josh served as a senior trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Labor. In this role, he acted as a first chair attorney representing the DOL in enforcing Federal employment laws, including OSHA, MSHA, FLSA, whistleblower, and EEO matters in Federal and Administrative courts in Texas and the neighboring states. He has also negotiated complex settlement agreements in numerous cases involving these statutes and regulations.
Josh has wide-ranging experience providing counsel and pre-litigation advice regarding government investigations and enforcing regulatory compliance in critical employer/employee areas, including safety & health, wage & hour, retaliation, wrongful termination, discrimination, classification as employees/independent contractors, work performance issues, and accommodations.
Concentrations
- Diversity, equity and inclusion
- Employment litigation and trials
- Wage and hour class and collective litigation
- Workplace compliance and counseling
- OSHA advice and litigation
Capabilities
Experience
Josh has tried cases involving the following issues:
- Failure to provide fall protection while performing commercial roofing activities.°
- Failure to provide fall protection while operating an aerial lift.°
- Failure to provide trench cave-in protection, engineering company.°
- Failure to provide machine guarding on a pipe cutting machine.°
- Failure to protect the swing radius on a mobile drilling rig.°
- Failure to guard a floor opening on a car wash conveyor.°
- Willful failure to provide point of operation guarding on a mechanical power press.°
- Willful failure to have a competent person design and construct a multi-story scaffold during construction of a high rise apartment building.°
- Failure to inspect scaffold components for visible defects during steel erection of a hospital.°
- Failure to implement a respiratory protection program to protect employees from lead exposure at a gun range.°
- Failure to ensure ground conditions were sufficient during crane assembly.°
- Failure to provide safe ingress and egress from the cargo hold of a barge.°
- Failure to perform a hazard assessment at a chemical plant during a turnaround.°
- Failure to provide protection against asphyxiation in a permit required confined space sewer manhole.°
- Repeated failure to permit only employees who were qualified by training and experience to operate one of the world's largest cranes.°
- Failure to follow OSHA's process safety management regulations concerning a steam boiler at a chemical refinery.°
- Failure to provide contract employees information concerning the known hazards at a chemical tank farm.°
- Willful failure to provide personal protective equipment to employees working around high voltage electrical equipment.°
Josh has settled cases involving the following issues:
- Failure to pay over $1M in overtime wages to employees on a government contract.°
- Failure to pay minimum wage and overtime to hotel employees.°
- Failure to pay minimum wage and overtime to tipped restaurant employees.°
- Failure to comply with the child labor safety and wage provisions of the FLSA.°
- Wrongful termination in violation of the anti-retaliation provisions of the FLSA.°
- Wrongful termination in violation of the anti-retaliation provisions of the MSH Act.°
- Wrongful termination in violation of the anti-retaliation provisions of the OSH Act.°
°The above representations were handled by Mr. Bernstein prior to his joining Greenberg Traurig, LLP.
- Senior Trial Attorney, U.S. Department of Labor, 2007-2023
- Board Certified, Personal Injury Trial Law, Texas Board of Legal Specialization, 2002-Present
- Adjunct Professor, Texas Civil Procedure, UNT Dallas College of Law, 2020-2022
- ESL Teacher, Ingles Para Ti, 2017-2020
Recognition & Leadership
- S. Department of Labor
- Secretary's Exceptional Achievement Award - DuPont Litigation and Negotiations Team, 2018
- Secretary's Exceptional Achievement Award, 2017
- Certificate of Historic Achievement Regarding 105(c) Case Filed on Behalf of America’s Miners, 2015
- OSHA Assistant Secretary’s Team Impact Award, 2012
- Secretary’s Exceptional Achievement Award, 2011
- Dallas Bar Association
- American Bar Association
- Executive Board of Directors, Congregation Shaare Tefilla
- Board of Directors, Akiba Academy
- Board of Directors, Yavneh Academy
- Board of Directors, Jewish Family Service
- Special Needs Partnership, Jewish Family Service
- Leadership Development Group, Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas
- Youth Soccer Coach, YMCA/JCC
Credentials
-
J.D., University of Texas School of Law, 1995
- Editor, Texas International Law Journal
- B.A., Special Honors, Plan II Honors Program, University of Texas at Austin, 1992
- Texas
- English, Native
- Spanish, Fluent
- Hebrew, Basic/Conversational