Bruce is an attorney licensed in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, West Virginia and Federal courts in Ohio 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.
A Butler County resident, Bruce has represented thousands of injured steel workers from AK Steel in Middletown, paper workers from Champion Paper, glass workers from Lancaster, and injured workers all over Ohio. Bruce has represented injured union workers nationwide for the majority of his legal career, including New York, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, 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 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 sponsors softball teams in Butler and Warren counties.
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.