josh@ssuder.com | 513.694.7500 (o) | 512.921.3269 (c)

Josh Bernstein is a Cincinnati native and real estate and corporate attorney who spent more than two decades in Austin, Texas — one of the fastest-growing cities in America — advising developers, investors, and operators through the deals that shaped it. Josh now lives in downtown Cincinnati, a short walk from the firm’s offices on Vine Street, bringing his boomtown experience gained in Austin home to Cincinnati.

Josh began his career as a mergers and acquisitions and securities associate at an elite New York firm before returning to Austin, where he attended law school at the University of Texas, joining the go-to firm locally for land use, entitlements, and real estate development. There, he had the opportunity to work on formative projects that helped define the city's transformation into a thriving metropolis and center of culture, technology, and music. Along the way, he gained a deep understanding of what lawyers sometimes call “dirt” real estate law — all of the pieces and moving parts that go into taking a project from raw land to a finished, financed, and occupied development. That foundation became the backbone of Josh's practice.

As he moved into partnership-level roles at major international law firms, Josh deepened and broadened his experience and skill set, developing fluency in joint ventures, portfolio acquisitions, and complex real estate financings. Throughout his career, Josh has also advised and worked on numerous complex condominium and master-planned community projects, a legal subspeciality that has become a hallmark of his practice.

Over more than twenty years in Austin, Josh had a front-row seat to the explosion of population and development that transformed the city, and he participated directly in many of the deals that helped shape Austin into what it is today. After all that time away, Josh returned to Cincinnati, a move that, for him, was revelatory. Coming home with fresh eyes gave him a new and deep appreciation for Cincinnati’s extraordinary history, its architecture, and its remarkable potential. And now he is putting his experience and the lessons learned from a career spent in a boomtown to work in his own hometown and home state of Ohio, and beyond.

Josh is also an urbanist who has come to hold a genuine appreciation for the vital role that the built environment plays in creating meaning for those who inhabit it. He believes deeply in the power of human connection through the kind of random, chance encounters that can only happen at scale in walkable, dense environments, and he takes pride in helping his clients serve as placemakers for these spaces.

Outside the office, Josh is an instrument-rated private pilot and a lifelong aviation enthusiast, with a passion for modern architecture and design. He is the father of two daughters, Noa and Ada.  Josh is proud to be Counsel for the Built Environment.