Merton Clay Bernstein (1923-2019) came to the Law School after ten years in Washington, D.C. working as a staff assistant and counsel on Capitol Hill to several Senate committees and Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon.

Bernstein was a pioneer in the academic study of pension policy. His 1964 book, The Future of Private Pensions, discussed some of the deficiencies of contemporary private pension plans. It won the Elizur Wright Award for the most outstanding contribution to the literature on insurance in 1965. Throughout his career—both at Yale, and later at Washington University in St. Louis— Bernstein has been one of the most visible and forceful defenders of the Social Security system.