G. KENNETH BERNHARD is a principal in Cohen and Wolf, P.C.'s Municipal, Litigation, Real Estate, Land Use & Zoning, and Family Law  Groups. Resident in the firm's Westport office, Mr. Bernhard represents municipalities and a wide range of businesses in litigation and commercial matters. He presently serves as town attorney for the Towns of Wilton (since 1992) and Weston (since 2000). He served as town attorney for the Town of Westport from 1981-1985, 1989-1993, and 1997. Mr. Bernhard has extensive experience in all phases of municipal law, including land use; administrative appeals; condemnations; foreclosures; contracts; and the drafting of municipal legislation. He volunteered his services to the Connecticut Judiciary as an attorney trial referee from 1984-1996.

Mr. Bernhard is very active in state and local matters. In 2007, he was appointed by State Representative Lawrence F. Cafero, Jr. to the Citizen's Ethics Advisory Board, the governing body for the Office of State Ethics, an independent watchdog agency for the State of Connecticut that ensures honesty, integrity and accountability in state government. The four-year term is effective January 1, 2008. In 2005, Mr. Bernhard was appointed by Governor Rell to sit on the Judicial Review Council. This appointment was extended until 2010. From 1997-2005, he was Westport's State Representative to the Connecticut General Assembly and served as an Assistant Minority Leader. Mr. Bernhard previously served as Westport's Third Selectman from 1987 to 1989 and was elected to the Westport Zoning Board of Appeals in 1989. He served or presently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Westport Public Library; Mid-Fairfield County Nursing and Home Care; The Norwalk Human Services Council; Earthplace; the Westport Historical Society; and the Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation.

In 2006, Mr. Bernhard was appointed to be a senior attorney with the Center of International Legal Studies located in Saltzburg, Austria. In this capacity, he taught a two week course on constitutional law to law students at Neophyte Rilski University in Sofia, Bulgaria, and in 2007, to graduate students at the Catholic University of Lublin in Lublin, Poland. In 2007, Mr. Bernhard was invited by UNESCO to teach a five day course in intellectual property and contract law to Iraqi museum directors in Amman, Jordan.

Mr. Bernhard is admitted to practice law in New York and Connecticut. He is a member and former president (1987-88) of the Westport Bar Association. He is a member of the Connecticut Bar Association and the Greater Bridgeport Bar Association.

Mr. Bernhard received his B.A. in 1966 from Yale University, and his J.D. (1969) and LL.M. (1970) from New York University Law School. While in the U.S. Army, he served as an associate professor of law at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, teaching both criminal and constitutional law.