Coffin with flowers. Photo: Robert Hoetink/Shutterstock.com

Francis Dineen, one of the pioneers of representing tenants in eviction cases in Connecticut, died Wednesday in Hamden. He was 84 years old.

Dineen founded the New Haven Legal Aid Assistance Association in 1964,

Some of those who knew, worked with or watched Dineen as an attorney say there was no one who had more passion for his work, his clients, his friends and colleagues.

"He was someone who felt we were representing clients who did not always get treated the best in court. He made sure they were respected, and he advocated for them," said Shelley White, director of litigation for the association, where Dineen worked as senior counsel.

White, who knew Dineen since 1987 when she began working for the association, said he mentored and taught generations of attorneys over the 55 years he spent with the nonprofit, and as a law professor at Yale University Law School, where he taught two clinical programs: a landlord/tenant clinic and a legal aid bureau, where students would work at the association.

"This is such a loss to us and to the state of Connecticut," White said. "I don't know that there is anyone like Frank out there today."

Longtime New Haven attorney John Williams got to know Dineen in 1969, when he worked for the association for two years. Williams called Dineen the "guru in defending eviction cases."

Back in the day, Williams said, what Dineen was doing was not only unheard of, but also very unpopular among many segments of the New Haven community.

"When he started in the 1960s and 1970s doing this work, the idea of free legal assistance to the poor was considered socialism," Williams said Thursday. "There were a group of lawyers in the New Haven County Bar Association who tried hard to shut him and the operation down. In particular, the landlord/tenant bar was used to getting what they wanted without pushback. Frank totally changed that dynamic. Even though he had bitter enemies, I never heard him say a harsh word about anyone."

Williams said he considered Dineen, the son of a lawyer, "as a classic example of a secular priest."

"He devoted his life to taking care of the poor and underserved people in the city of New Haven without a moment's concern for money, prestige or anything except doing good," Williams said.

Later in his career, White said Dineen was known to a whole new generation of attorneys as a caring man who was accessible to everyone.

"He had an open-door policy," White said. "He always made time to talk to you and answer your questions. He always had a smile on his face and he enjoyed trying to puzzle out the answers to complicated legal questions."