Bentley Patrick, Esq.

Bentley was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He has spent most of his life in the greater Birmingham, Alabama, area. After graduating from Birmingham-Southern College, he married his college sweetheart and went to work for a large regional bank’s trust department before going back to law school. While in law school, Bentley was active in his law school’s nationally acclaimed moot court and mock trial programs. He served as a teaching fellow for first year law students, tried misdemeanor cases his third year in a District Attorney’s office, and was a delegate to the international convention of a professional legal fraternity. He was inducted into the Order of Barristers.

Bentley entered a general law practice and tried a wide range of civil and criminal cases to verdict. He then embarked on 24 years of insurance defense practice, both in-house with insurers and in private practice. He has tried a wide variety of civil cases including premises liability, motor vehicle negligence, workers’ compensation, dental malpractice and product liability cases. He has defended clients in over forty Alabama counties and tried cases to verdict in twenty Alabama counties.

As a mediator, Bentley has helped over 200 parties settle civil disputes. As an arbitrator, Bentley decided 350 inter-company insurance arbitration cases. Bentley served three years as a trial judge in Alabama’s busiest circuit, vetted by judicial commissions and appointed by two Alabama governors to finish terms of retiring judges. He presided over 18 jury trials and 400 bench trials.

Bentley and his wife are the parents of two amazing twenty-something daughters and two rescue dogs. In his spare time, Bentley enjoys choral singing, hiking, and watching college football.

Undergraduate: Birmingham-Southern College

Law School: Cumberland School of Law, Samford University