Biography

Bernard Jolles was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1928. He served in the U.S. Navy briefly just after the end of World War II, from 1946 to 1947, and then attended New York University, graduating in 1951. He met Lenore Madison while at N.Y.U. and they were married in 1953; they had later four children and divorced in 1983. Jolles was involved in the Communist Party, but left in 1956. In 1957, he relocated to Oregon, where he studied at the Northwestern College of Law in Portland, earning his degree in 1961. He was rejected by the Oregon Bar due to his communist ties, but that decision was overturned by the Oregon Supreme Court, and he was admitted in 1963. He became an attorney in Portland and started his own law firm, Jolles, Sokol, & Bernstein, in 1979. He served on the board of governors for the Oregon State Bar from 1984 to 1986 and served as president from 1986 to 1987. In 1985, Jolles and Susan Walker were married. Since 2007 he has practiced as a civil rights and personal injury lawyer at the Law Offices of Bernard Jolles in Portland.

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