Nobody gets to choose who their parents are, Judge Joseph P. Flynn told a packed courtroom at Superior Court in Derby Tuesday.
But Judge Flynn, a lifelong Ansonia resident and former Chief Judge of the state’s Appellate Court, said he was lucky to be raised by two Evening Sentinel reporters who encouraged him — even if his chosen calling wouldn’t have been their first choice.
“My father, like so many newspapermen, detested lawyers as a group,” he said of Charles H. Flynn, a longtime editor of the Evening Sentinel. “Yet two of his closest Main Street friends were attorneys.”
“As I have sometime told those who are critical of our profession, be charitable about lawyers,” he joked as his audience — composed mostly of attorneys — laughed. “One of your own children might turn out badly and, like my father, you’ll end up with one in the family.”
The judge, whose career has spanned more than five decades, is a towering figure in the Valley legal community.
A veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and the U.S. Naval Reserve, he became a lawyer in 1966 and served as town counsel to Seymour before serving as a staff attorney at the state’s general assembly and serving as a state senator from 1975 to 1979.
He also practiced law in Ansonia for 20 years before being appointed to the bench by Gov. William O’Neill in 1985.
In 2001, he was appointed to the state’s Appellate Court, serving as the court’s chief judge from 2006 to 2010.
Though retired from full-time work, Judge Flynn still hears appellate cases on a designated basis.
Click here to read a bio from the Judicial Branch’s website.
On Tuesday the Lower Naugatuck Valley Bar Association honored Flynn by unveiling a portrait commissioned from artist Nicole Salva that will hang at the Derby courthouse.
As several speakers during Tuesday’s ceremony noted, it was Flynn’s advocacy as a state senator in the late 1970s that ensured the building’s existence.
“Without his diligent effort, there would never be a courthouse here,” Mary Androski, part of the bar association’s portrait committee, said.
“We would not be standing in this building today if it weren’t for Joseph,” William Lavery, a former chief judge of the state’s appellate court, noted later.
Judge Frank Iannotti, the top administrative judge in the Ansonia-Milford Judicial District, opened Tuesday’s ceremony by congratulating Flynn on a lifetime of accomplishments — as a practicing lawyer, superior court judge, and appellate court judge.
“And, more importantly, as everyone in this room knows, a lifelong Valley guy,” Judge Iannotti went on. “Born here, raised here, and stayed here. And really, over the course of his career, has done a tremendous amount of good for the people of the Valley.”
James Sheehy, the president of the Valley Bar Association and a former partner in a practice with Flynn, emceed Tuesday’s ceremony and echoed Judge Iannotti’s sentiments.
“He has remained a loyal and true friend to his hometown, the Valley, and to the Judicial District of Ansonia-Milford,” Sheehy said.
Greg Stamos, another member of the bar association’s portrait committee, agreed.
“At his core Joe is a Valleyite,” he said. “Always was and always will be.”
Judge Flynn received a standing ovation before thanking those at Tuesday’s ceremony — and Salva, the portrait’s artist, for “an amazing job for the subject she had to work with.”
It was Sheehy’s fault, the judge joked — he used to have a lot more hair, but tore much of while the two were partners.
He noted that much has changed in the tight-knit Valley community over the years.
“Sadly our print paper, our synagogue, our manufacturing are gone,” the judge said.
“But much remains and has improved,” he went on. “We’re served by an online Valley Independent Sentinel, our United Way has grown under the leadership of Jack Walsh, and thanks to members of the bar, the Valley Community Foundation was organized and is flourishing to meet many worthwhile charitable needs, along with the Katherine Matthies Foundation.”
Judge Flynn ended his remarks by quoting the closing lines of “Ulysses,” a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, about the mythic warrior who, despite old age, says that “Some work of noble note, may yet be done.”
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
