Bernard Bell received a B.A. cum laude from Harvard and a J.D. from Stanford, where he was notes editor of the Law Review and a member of Order of the Coif. He clerked for Judge Amalya L. Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White and then practiced with Sullivan and Cromwell in New York. Before coming to Rutgers in 1994, he served as senior litigation counsel and, earlier, as assistant U.S. attorney (Civil Division) in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

Professor Bell has written numerous articles which have appeared in several journals, including the Stanford Law Review, the Texas Law Review, the North Carolina Law Review, the Ohio State Law Review, the George Washington Law Review, the Pittsburgh Law Review, the Federal Communications Law Journal, and the Journal of Law and Politics. He has been an invited speaker at the Columbia Legal Theory Workshop, the University of Illinois Faculty Colloquium, and the Administrative and Regulatory Law Section of the American Bar Association, and has been a visiting professor at Columbia Law School and the George Washington University School of Law.

Professor Bell serves as the dean's representative on the New Jersey Law Revision Commission. He is a former member of the Governing Council of the ABA Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, former vice chair of the section's Constitutional Law and Separation of Powers Committee, and currently vice�chair of the section's Government Information and Right to Privacy Committee. As consultant to the Administrative Conference of the United States, Professor Bell is conducting a study of the Government in the Sunshine Act.

Professor Bell served as associate dean for faculty and then associate dean for academic affairs and faculty from June 2004 to July 2008.