Bruce is an attorney licensed in Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Texas and West
Virginia.
Bruce was born in Dayton, the
son of a career Navy sailor and full time home
maker. He attended high school in Lawrence
County, Ohio, graduating from South Point High
in 1974. His maternal grandfather worked as a
millwright and pipefitter in South Point, Ohio
and Huntington, West Virginia. His paternal
grandfather was a farmer in Lawrence County,
Ohio, while working additional jobs to raise
his family of 13 children. Bruce is a member of
Mount Hope Baptist Church, which
was founded on land donated by his great
grandfather.
He has been an attorney
since 1991. Bruce has a bachelors and masters
degree in journalism. Prior to law school Bruce
served in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Nimitz
as a photographer. After the Navy, Bruce worked
to put himself through college, earning a
teaching degree in social studies and
journalism. After graduation, Bruce taught high
school and worked as a journalist.
Bruce has represented injured union
workers nationwide for the majority of his
legal career, including New York, West
Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Texas, and
Hawaii. Bruce has represented thousands of
union workers including members of the
International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers, United Steel Workers of America,
Rubber workers (before the union became part of
the USWA), the Armco Employees Independent
Federation, and members of bricklayers,
pipefitters, asbestos workers, power plant
workers and countless other unions. Because
asbestos and its ravages do not respect any
boundaries, Bruce has also represented family
members of union workers who have died from
asbestos cancers.
Bruce is part of a
group of attorneys who have worked to create a
compensation fund in cooperation
with Travelers Insurance Company worth
over $400 million. He has served as co-chair of
the Court Appointed Official Creditors’
Committee of the Combustion Engineering
bankruptcy, trying to prevent the Swiss parent
company from avoiding its responsibility for
the injuries caused by Combustion Engineering.
Bruce has served as a member of the American
Bar Association’s Torts and Insurance Practice
Section Asbestos Task Force..
Bruce is
married to Michele DeCresce, a former
teacher. Michele is also an
attorney who represented abused and neglected
children as a Guardian ad Litem attorney and a
Court Appointed Special Advocate in Butler
County. Michele’s father was a union official
with the IUE in the General Electric plant in
Schenectady, New York. They have two daughters,
Leah, a Fairfield High School senior and Maya,
age 12, a seventh grader at a Montessori school
in Warren County. They have been residents of
Fairfield for over 11 years.
Bruce is a
member of the Ohio, West Virginia and Texas Bar
Associations as well as the Ohio Academy for
Justice and the American Association for
Justice. Bruce has a B.A. and M.A.J. from
Marshall University and J.D. from the
University of Akron.