
Bernadette C. Crucilla was born and raised in Huntington, New York. She obtained her Bachelor's Degree in Psychology from the University of South Florida in 1992 with honors. She went on to seek her Juris Doctorate from Mercer University's Walter F. George School of Law and graduated in 1996, cum laude. While at Mercer Law School she received the high honor of serving on the Mercer Law Review and the Intrastate Moot Court Team. She participated in the Mercer Mentor Program, the Faculty Crisis Management Team, co-founded the Public Interest Law Society and was a Torts Teaching Assistant. She received a number of scholarships and awards, including the Faculty Award for Outstanding Achievement in Legal Writing, was on the Dean's List from 1993-1996 and was a frequent contributor to the student newspaper, The Legal Eagle.
Bernadette has been a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Macon Bar Association, the Women In Law Society, the Macon Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the American Bar Association. She is also a member of the "Shaken Baby" division of the Innocence Project network, a national network of professionals committed to the defense of those wrongfully accused/convicted of severe child abuse/murder
and has been a guest speaker at their Atlanta meeting. She was featured in the International Top 100 Business Professionals Magazine in 2012 and currently serves as a Master in the Bootle Inn of Court.
Following law school, Bernadette worked for a number of years as an Associate Attorney for Debra Gomez at the Gomez Law Group in Macon, after which she opened Roell-Taylor, Crucilla and Flynt LLP. From 2004 - 2009, she worked as an Associate Attorney for the late Althea Buafo at Buafo & Associates where she assisted in the defense of hundreds of criminal cases and in charge of handling all criminal appeals as well as the auto accident division of the firm.
Following the death of Althea Buafo, Bernadette went out on her own and formed Crucilla Law Firm LLC in 2010. While she is currently the sole attorney, she brings in sufficient resources from outside the firm when necessary to get the job done. This includes experts from her vast source of national connections, private investigators, associated attorneys, Spanish interpreters and/or contract paralegals for very large cases.
Bernadette's specialties include all areas of criminal defense litigation, from traffic infractions to major felonies, both in the superior and federal courts. She has drafted and argued hundreds of motions in criminal cases all over the State of Georgia and has handled criminal cases in nearly every part of Georgia.
She also has years of experience in handling appeals and has either filed herself, or "ghost-written" hundreds of appellate briefs for other lawyers in Macon and other parts of Georgia with an extremely high success rate. She has had the pleasure and distinction of presenting oral argument before the Georgia Supreme Court, the Georgia Court of Appeals, as well as the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. She further had the distinction of writing a winning brief which was affirmed by the United States Supreme Court in a racial discrimination case in 2007.
Bernadette has been an instrumental player in a number of high profile civil rights cases which have resolved successfully for her clients and has personally handled hundreds of auto accident cases, obtaining settlements totaling in the millions of dollars over the course of her career.
Bernadette's other specialties include defending both students and other professionals before admissions and regulatory boards in order to obtain and/or maintain their professional licenses. She is admitted to the Georgia Supreme Court and the Georgia Court of Appeals, as well as the Federal District Courts for both the Northern and Middle Districts.
Bernadette has been a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Macon Bar Association, the Women In Law Society, the Macon Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the American Bar Association. She is also a member of the "Shaken Baby" division of the Innocence Project network, a national network of professionals committed to the defense of those wrongfully accused/convicted of severe child abuse/murder
and has been a guest speaker at their Atlanta meeting. She was featured in the International Top 100 Business Professionals Magazine in 2012 and currently serves as a Master in the Bootle Inn of Court.
Following law school, Bernadette worked for a number of years as an Associate Attorney for Debra Gomez at the Gomez Law Group in Macon, after which she opened Roell-Taylor, Crucilla and Flynt LLP. From 2004 - 2009, she worked as an Associate Attorney for the late Althea Buafo at Buafo & Associates where she assisted in the defense of hundreds of criminal cases and in charge of handling all criminal appeals as well as the auto accident division of the firm.
Following the death of Althea Buafo, Bernadette went out on her own and formed Crucilla Law Firm LLC in 2010. While she is currently the sole attorney, she brings in sufficient resources from outside the firm when necessary to get the job done. This includes experts from her vast source of national connections, private investigators, associated attorneys, Spanish interpreters and/or contract paralegals for very large cases.
Bernadette's specialties include all areas of criminal defense litigation, from traffic infractions to major felonies, both in the superior and federal courts. She has drafted and argued hundreds of motions in criminal cases all over the State of Georgia and has handled criminal cases in nearly every part of Georgia.
She also has years of experience in handling appeals and has either filed herself, or "ghost-written" hundreds of appellate briefs for other lawyers in Macon and other parts of Georgia with an extremely high success rate. She has had the pleasure and distinction of presenting oral argument before the Georgia Supreme Court, the Georgia Court of Appeals, as well as the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. She further had the distinction of writing a winning brief which was affirmed by the United States Supreme Court in a racial discrimination case in 2007.
Bernadette has been an instrumental player in a number of high profile civil rights cases which have resolved successfully for her clients and has personally handled hundreds of auto accident cases, obtaining settlements totaling in the millions of dollars over the course of her career.
Bernadette's other specialties include defending both students and other professionals before admissions and regulatory boards in order to obtain and/or maintain their professional licenses. She is admitted to the Georgia Supreme Court and the Georgia Court of Appeals, as well as the Federal District Courts for both the Northern and Middle Districts.