Clive W. Bare was born on March 1, 1914 in Marion, Virginia. He earned his LLB at Cumberland University in 1933 and was admitted to the Tennessee Bar in 1934. Bare began his career in the U.S. Department of Justice in 1939, where he held a number of different positions before becoming a judge in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1957. He remained at this post until his retirement in 1987. Bare returned to the bench three years later to ease the overcrowding of dockets in the Eastern District of Kentucky and the Southern District of Florida. Bare died on July 15, 1994 in Knoxville, Tennessee.