Former Connecticut Supreme Court Justice and DCF Commissioner Joette Katz of Shipman & Goodwin. Courtesy photo

Editor's note: The funeral for late Connecticut Supreme Court Justice Robert I. Berdon, who died last week at age 89, was held Monday.

Last week Connecticut lost a great jurist, Robert I. Berdon. Many have expressed sympathies and reminisced about particular cases they argued before him. I had the honor of working with Bob for close to a decade. Sadly, there are only a few of us left who can claim that privilege. Justice Palmer's remarks last week were extremely eloquent. Mine are a bit more personal.

I first really got to know Bob when I was appointed to the Supreme Court in the fall of 1992. Everyone knew him by reputation as being thoughtful, extremely liberal, and driven by a strong moral compass. Those traits led him to make many controversial decisions while on the trial bench, some finding support in federal court and some just not yet ready to be embraced by higher authorities, that contributed to his being passed over for elevation to the Supreme Court despite his seniority. But Gov. Lowell Weicker, who knew Bob from their political days, also knew his values and the importance of developing a body of jurisprudence under the state Constitution. (As we later witnessed, Weicker was correct and State v. Geisler did not disappoint.)

When Bob was finally elevated to the Supreme Court in 1991 after 18 years on the trial bench, he made up for lost time. In a ceremony celebrating Bob's 20th anniversary on the bench, then Chief Justice Ellen Peters said. "Fiercely independent, passionately committed to the view that our courts have a wide-ranging responsibility to protect the rights of defendants, especially criminal defendants, Justice Berdon has written an extraordinary number of vigorous dissents and concurrences, 63 by the most recent official count. These opinions stand as a testament to his intellectual and social conscience and reflect his belief, so well expressed at his swearing in, that 'the poor must have adequate legal representation to assure reasonable access to the judicial branch of government in order to protect and preserve their rights.'"

By the time Bob became "constitutionally senile" at 70, he'd written 433 dissenting opinions and 135 majorities. I shared a secretary with Bob, and he did everything longhand on a yellow pad. During the years that we shared a law clerk, I drew the short straw there as well. Clerks and secretaries alike had a hard time keeping up with Bob. Early on we agreed more than we disagreed. We often voted for cert on cases leading to a rule change requiring three votes.

Bob complained at times that when the lemon tree (the assignment for cases) came out, he wasn't given the "meaty" or "important" cases. I reminded him that he did not agree with the majority and so could not be assigned those to write. I used to sing the song "The Gambler" to him in the parking lot ("You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run") He refused to capitulate, or to compromise. Bob wanted to right every wrong, and was incapable of choosing his battles. No cause was unworthy and no litigant was less deserving. Bob found it more important to keep dissenting than to consider whether he could be more influential if he picked his targets.

Bob believed he had a responsibility to demonstrate to the public that justice was being done and issues were receiving a serious and public debate. "It's important that if you disagree with the majority, you don't merely go along to tag along," he once said. "You have an obligation to put in your views and words so the the public can know what the other side is. It's a constitutional obligation." I'm not sure the public needed to witness some of the personal attacks. When Bob left the court I said that had he left two years earlier his legacy might have been stronger, because during his last two years, his injection of personal aspersions had undermined both the quality of his opinions and the messages he sent.

Now years later, I want to revise that sentiment. While Bob certainly could have been less vitriolic (he once called me cockamamie in print) had he retired earlier, we would have been deprived of his thinking on more than 50 cases and countless important and often constitutional issues. I'm not sure, as a reporter once remarked, "whether there is a constitutional requirement to criticize one's colleagues with such obvious relish." But if that was the price to hear his voice, I for one am not sorry I had to pay it.

Former Connecticut Supreme Court Justice Joette Katz is a partner in Shipman & Goodwin's business litigation practice group.