Connecticut
Kevin Rennie: Connecticut Bar Association is familiar with silence at crucial moments
Watch your mouth. That was the message from the Connecticut Bar Association’s three top leaders to the organization’s thousands of members, of which I’m one. The June 13 statement was prompted by perpetually aggrieved Donald Trump supporters hurling abuse at prosecutors, jurors and Judge Juan Merchan after the former president’s conviction this month on 34 counts of violating New York law through a 2016 hush money scheme.
The CBA officers, Maggie Castinado, James T. Shearin and Emily A. Gianquinto, condemned but did not name public officials who issued statements calling the trial a sham, hoax, and rigged; abused Judge Merchan as corrupt and unethical; and claimed the jury was partisan and in the bag for guilty verdicts from the start.
The statement excoriated social media posts seeking to breach the confidentiality of the jurors’ identity. What it did not allege is that any Connecticut lawyers were participating in these assaults on the rule of law. Near its conclusion, the trio’s homily got to the point. “It is up to us, as lawyers,” they wrote, “to defend the courts and our judges. As individuals, and as an Association, we cannot let the charged political climate in which we live dismantle the third branch of government. To remain silent renders us complicit in that effort.”
And then U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a lawyer, had to go and spoil it all three days later by unleashing the same type of hyperbole. He called the Supreme Court “brazenly corrupt and brazenly political” on CNN. Murphy added that Justice Clarence Thomas is “just a grift,” while Justice Samuel Alito is an open political partisan.
As of Friday, the civility umpires at the CBA had issued no statement chiding Murphy.
The CBA is familiar with silence at crucial moments. Six years ago, a mob of antisemites targeted the renomination of Judge Jane Emons to the Superior Court. Judge Emons was the target of appalling rhetoric. The CBA released no thunderbolts as the House of Representatives refused to vote on her renomination, forcing her off the bench.
A few years ago, I wrote about Alice Bruno, a Connecticut judge who failed to show up for work for two years while continuing to receive her salary and benefits. Emails showed plenty of people knew that Judge Bruno had been missing in action, but they remained silent. Bruno’s fate was decided in a secret proceeding when she was granted a disability pension that currently pays her more than $5,000 every two weeks. She worked, often erratically, as a Superior Court judge for only four years before she stopped showing up in 2019.
Before becoming a judge, Bruno did an 18-month stint as executive director of the Connecticut Bar Association. It remained silent throughout the Bruno saga, which undermined the public’s confidence in the judiciary.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a sensational investigation into the appalling saga of a federal bankruptcy judge and his personal relationship with lawyer Elizabeth Freeman, who had been his law partner and clerk in Houston. One of the nation’s biggest law firms, Kirkland & Ellis, brought in Freeman to work with it on cases before her boyfriend, Judge David R. Jones.
An anonymous letter lit the fuse on exposing the shocking conflicts at work in the nation’s busiest bankruptcy court. Michael Van Deelan, a small investor in a firm that filed for bankruptcy in the Houston court, believed he had not been treated fairly in the shakeout of the company. Van Deelan received a copy of the letter and filed it with the court in an attempt to have Jones disqualified from his case. Van Deelan’s motion was denied and the letter was sealed from public view, the Journal reported.
Van Deelan discovered through an internet search that Jones and Freeman owned a house together since 2017. Plenty of lawyers appear to have known that the two were engaged in a romantic relationship. To expose it would have ended a sweet arrangement that was a bonanza for the firms and their bankruptcy clients who brought Freeman in on their cases.
No one said a word. Only Van Deelan, a 74-year-old retired math teacher, brought justice where corruption ruled. It took an Appellate Court judge only a week to find probable cause by Jones for failing to disclose his relationship with Freeman. He resigned.
It requires no courage for bar association leaders to condemn those discreditable officials who donned red ties and made pilgrimages to New York to stand outside the courthouse to mewl and whine that the justice system was targeting the loathsome demagogue, Donald Trump.
To shine a searing light when something goes wrong in the judicial branch of government when no one is paying attention— that’s what protects the integrity of the system.
Kevin Rennie can be reached at kfrennie@yahoo.com
The following article was submitted by Brody and Associates, LLC. It is posted here with permission.
The Connecticut legislature passed broad artificial intelligence legislation May 11, 2026 that includes a new framework governing the use of AI in employment-related decisions.
The bill, known as SB 5, is awaiting Gov. Ned Lamont’s signature, which is expected shortly.
Once enacted, Connecticut will join a growing list of jurisdictions that are imposing transparency and accountability requirements on employers that use AI tools in recruiting, hiring, promotion, discipline, scheduling, and termination decisions.
The statute regulates what it calls automated employment-related decision technology.
In general, AEDT refers to technology that processes personal data and generates an output that is a substantial factor in an employment decision.
The definition is broad enough to potentially cover resume-screening software, applicant ranking systems, video-interview analytics, skills assessments, productivity tools, and certain workforce management platforms when those tools materially influence personnel decisions.
What Does the Law Require?
The purpose of the law is to reduce the risk that algorithmic systems will continue or worsen historic discrimination while also giving applicants and employees more visibility into how these systems are used.
One of the most important features of the new law is its notice requirement.
Beginning Oct. 1, 2027, employers that deploy AEDT intended to interact with applicants or employees must disclose, in plain language, that the individual is interacting with such technology unless it would be obvious to a reasonable person.
When the tool’s output will be used as a substantial factor in making an employment-related decision, the employer must also provide a written notice before the decision is made.
The law does include protection for proprietary or trade secret information.
Notice must identify the purpose of the tool, the categories and sources of personal data being analyzed, how data will be assessed, and contact information for the employer.
If such employment-related decision is “adverse,” employers must provide a high-level statement disclosing the principal reasons for the decision, including “the degree to which, and manner in which” an AEDP output contributed to the decision, the type of data used, and the right to examine or correct such data.
The law does include protection for proprietary or trade secret information, but employers should not assume that vendor confidentiality excuses them from compliance.
If an employer withholds certain information regarding the AEDP based on a third party’s confidentiality claim, the employer must nevertheless disclose that the information is being withheld and identify the legal basis for the withholding.
As a practical matter, this means employers that rely on outside vendors for screening, testing, or candidate evaluation should begin reviewing vendor contracts now to ensure they can obtain the information needed to satisfy Connecticut’s notice obligations.
Anti-Discrimination and Related Obligations
The law also makes clear employers cannot avoid liability by blaming an algorithm.
Connecticut’s anti-discrimination framework will expressly provide the use of AI or automated systems is not a defense to a discrimination claim.
The employer may still be responsible even if the challenged output came from a third-party platform.
In other words, if an AEDT disproportionately screens out candidates or influences decisions in a way that has an unlawful discriminatory effect, the employer may still be responsible even if the challenged output came from a third-party platform.
This provision reinforces a principle regulators have increasingly emphasized nationwide: employers remain accountable for employment decisions, whether those decisions are made by people, software, or a combination of both.
What Employers Should Do Now
For employers, the immediate takeaway is AI governance can no longer be treated as an IT issue.
Human resources, legal, compliance, and procurement teams should collaborate to identify all tools used in recruiting or personnel management, assess whether those tools materially affect employment decisions, and determine what disclosures this new law may require.
Even companies that already use AI responsibly may need to formalize review procedures.
Employers should also assess whether internal policies, vendor agreements, and recordkeeping practices are sufficient to support compliance.
Even companies that already use AI responsibly may need to formalize review procedures, conduct bias testing, and create documentation explaining how automated outputs are considered by human decision-makers.
Connecticut’s new law reflects a broader regulatory trend: employers may continue using AI, but they must do so transparently, carefully, and with meaningful human accountability.
About the authors: Robert Brody is managing partner at Brody and Associates, LLC, which he founded in 1997. Matthew Chiota is a law clerk at Brody and Associates, awaiting admission to the Connecticut and New York Bar associations. Contact them at [email protected] or 203.454.0560.
MERIDEN, Conn. (WTNH) — A couple of Connecticut wildlife stories that may give you nightmares.
A snake was on a roof in Meriden on Wednesday. D&D Wildlife Control ran into the snake, which is a rat snake, that was looking for a crevice or hole to get into the attic.
Trapper Don Dandelski told News 8 it is quite common for snakes to slither up the side of your house and get inside, but they are harmless.
It is also gray treefrog mating season in Connecticut.
News 8’s Dennis House and Ann Nyberg each had encounters with the frogs. Ann shot the video of loud mating calls of these frogs, and a few days later a frog showed up on Dennis’ door and patio and waved and said hi.
According to the Beardsley Zoo, frogs lay up to 2,000 eggs, laid singly or in small groups, and hatch within five days.
See how Milford compares to other communities across the state:
The average value of homes near Milford include:
- Stratford: $462,162
- West Haven: $361,523
- Orange: $628,308
The data comes as Connecticut continues to face rising home prices and limited inventory.
According to Redfin, 8,307 homes were listed for sale statewide in March, down 10.2 percent year over year.
Zillow estimates the average Connecticut home value is now about $441,466, a 4.8 percent increase over the past year.
— Hayleigh Evans, Patch Staff, contributed to this report.
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