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Licensed In
California
Background
Alison Bernal is a partner and trial attorney at Nye, Stirling, Hale, Miller & Sweet. Throughout her legal career, Alison has represented clients in civil litigation in state and federal court, from trials through all levels of appeal. Alison represents both individuals, as well as large and small companies, and public entities. Alison’s work for her clients has made an impact in a wide range of practice areas, including catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death, sexual assault, civil rights, higher education law, wrongful termination, consumer class actions, and constitutional law, and has led her to be selected as a Southern California SuperLawyer Rising Star from 2021 to 2024, and a Southern California SuperLawyer in 2025.
A large part of Alison’s practice is dedicated to higher education law, where she represents universities in claims arising under section 1983, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title VII, and Title IX. Through her higher education practice, Alison has handled numerous administrative trials and arbitrations, including privilege and tenure hearings and union arbitrations. Beyond her litigation practice, Alison routinely advises clients on how best to avoid the risk of litigation. She counsels both large corporations and entities, as well as smaller local businesses.
For the first several years of her career, Alison worked on defense-side personal injury and insurance matters. This led her to want to help the other side when she joined NSHMS in 2014. Since joining NSHMS, Alison has made significant impacts for her individual clients in cases involving serious personal injury, wrongful death, and wrongful termination. In addition to numerous settlements for multiple six-figures, Alison has obtained a $16 million settlement for a client who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a bicycle accident, a $2,750,000 settlement for a client who suffered various orthopedic injuries in a bicycle accident, a $2,600,000 settlement for clients who were wrongfully terminated after whistleblowing, and has served as local counsel for many consumer class actions which have resulted in tens of millions of dollars to injured consumers.
Alison devotes a large amount of her time to volunteering for nonprofits. She is the past president and current board member of the Santa Barbara Athletic Roundtable, current board member of Santa Barbara Swim Club, and past board member of Santa Barbara Women Lawyers, Santa Barbara Barristers, and Santa Barbara Women Lawyers Foundation. She has been a featured speaker at many events promoting women in leadership. Her current nonprofit work focuses on promoting youth sports, which played an important role in her life. Alison received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, double-majoring in Business Economics and Law and Society. While at UCSB, Alison competed on the NCAA Division I women’s swim team and was a Regents scholarship recipient. She received her juris doctorate from Pepperdine University. While in law school, Alison also earned a certificate from the Strauss Institute of Dispute Resolution and was a Dean’s scholarship recipient.
When not practicing law, Alison can be found on a pool deck, field, or beach cheering on her three kids at their activities. She continues to swim competitively for the local masters swim team and at local ocean swimming races.
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