An attorney, he served as a legal staffer for American Hospital Supply Corp, a special prosecutor for voter fraud, as counsel for Allstate Insurance Company, and as an instructor at Loyola University Chicago's campus in Rome.
In 1986, as an independent Democrat supported by MayorHarold Washington, Bernardini was elected to the Cook County Board of Commissioners as one of ten at-large members from Chicago.
He resigned from the County Board in January 1992 to take a position as managing director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Milano, Italy.
[6] In November 1993, Richard M. Daley appointed Bernardini to succeed Edwin Eisendrath as Alderman from Chicago's 43rd ward.
He has received the keys to the city of both Porretta Terme (for which he has long served as pro bono counsel to its Soul Music Festival) and Lizzano in Belevedere (home of his paternal grandfather, Benedetto Ciro, who emigrated to Illinois in 1905).