1 INTERVIEW SUBJECT: Hon. Raymond Norko INTERVIEW DATE: June 24, 2013 TRANSCRIBER: Jodie Algarin TRANSCRIPTION DATE: September 26, 2023 2 NORMAN JANES: My name is Norm Janes, and I have the pleasure of interviewing the Honorable Raymond R. Norco, or Ray as we like to call him. Today is the 24th day of July -- of June, 2013. I'm conducting this interview on -- as a part of the Connecticut Bar Foundation James W. Cooper Fellows History of Legal Services in Connecticut Project. So thank you for giving us your time, and why don't we begin, if you can, giving us a brief timeline of your active involvement in legal aid in Connecticut. HON. RAYMOND NORKO: Basically, I came to -- back to Connecticut to the _______+ program and the original _______ Smith fellow. Spent up a couple years up in Danielson. NORMAN JANES: When was that, Ray? HON. RAYMOND NORKO: 1970. Spent a couple years up in Danielson Community to Putnum to take clients on Fridays, had the unique opportunity to serve the clients of the Danielson area. I then went in 1975, was hired as the executive director of the Legal Aid Society of Hartford County. Spent ten years there, was nominated by the Governor O'Neill to the bench on November 4th, 1985, and been on the bench ever since. It should be noted that I've 3 always kept my eye on legal services as a judge and tried to help out in any way I could. NORMAN JANES: You might want to mention your role in the bar foundation in those years after you were appointed to the bench. HON. RAYMOND NORKO: Fortunately, I was appointed to the board of the bar foundation and such wonderful group of people with determination and grit, and eventually ended up as president, and one of my last official acts as president was the Fellow's Program was ________ in at that particular moment, which turned out to be a wonderful program, even though we sort of fought our way to the positive side of the ledger. NORMAN JANES: So let's go back to your earliest days in legal aid working with ________ legal assistance program. What was -- tell us about the position you held and the kind of work that you were doing in the beginning years. HON. RAYMOND NORKO: In the beginning years, as any other beginner, I was learning the ropes of poverty. I sat in Danielson as the -- the leader of the office. Bob Keller was there. Bob left as soon as I came. I don't know if it was 4 because I came, but he left anyway. And then most of the cases I handled -- well, we handled everything coming in the door, but most of the _______ cases was in the Social Security area, which I concentrated on. Took a case called White V Matthews all the way to the United States Supreme Court in which they failed to grant cert, which went through the District Court by Judge Clarie and the appellate courts down in New York. NORMAN JANES: Tell us about White V Matthews. What was the issue? HON. RAYMOND NORKO: The ALJs in the Social Security system would hear cases and then sit on the decision for inordinate periods of time, sometimes as long as 18 months. Basically I sued saying that if they don't render a decision within six months, they're prematurely eligible to the decision rendered. And obviously if the decision is positive then everything works out well; the decision's negative then it cuts them off from the Social Security. Probably said it cost the government quite a bit _______ took them about seven years or eight years to reverse that particular decision, and I was always proud of the fact that Judge Clarie who was from the Danielson area, was probably one of the most conservative jurists I've known on the east coast, and Judge Clarie in 5 everything I ever brought never ruled against me, which I've always found as a marketed distinction. NORMAN JANES: There we go. what was -- you were specializing in Social Security Disability work or -- HON. RAYMOND NORKO: I don't think _______+. NORMAN JANES: Is that a fair statement? HON. RAYMOND NORKO: No, I don't think that's a fair -- you had to take what came in the door, and Social Security seemed -- disability especially, was one of the areas I was always showing up. I mean, there were people who lived in Danielson who didn't have electricity. The mental illness perspective from the nongovernmental was deficient. We were always bringing cases to help people out with mental illnesses and things of that nature. I had one of my favorite clients who's probably long passed away whose name was Jasper McLaughlin (ph) who was a punch drunk exfighter. Jasper would show up in my office every day at 2:00. It didn't matter whether he had an appointment, whether I was there. He would show up and hang around for about 15 to 20 minutes. So finally one day I said I better figure this 6 out. So I took our -- we had a little, small bathroom upstairs, and I made it Jasper's office. Jasper would go in there and sit on the john for 10 or 15 minutes, do nothing, walk out, smile and come back the next day. NORMAN JANES: Can you tell us what drew you to legal aid work in the first place, Ray? HON. RAYMOND NORKO: I went to University of Toledo Law School. I was in the military for four years before I went into -- went to Yukon undergraduate. And then my third year they opened up a clinic, which was one of the first ones in the country. And as soon as I found out what they were doing, I knew that that's what I wanted to do. NORMAN JANES: Can you tell us who were -- particularly in those early days, but throughout your legal aid career -- who were your mentors or who were some of your memorable colleagues? HON. RAYMOND NORKO: Well, the first one that comes to mind is Doug Crockett. Doug was always the anchor of the office, intellectually -- in that intellectual shell was a forceful person, a very competitive person that always pushed the buttons the right way and always brought about 7 good results. We had Jack Dazan (ph), we had Jim Certivan (ph) we had yourself, all part of the offices. The legal aid offices in the '70s was under tremendous pressure from the private bar. I mean, I had an incident myself with the private bar that forced me to go down and take my boards or my license applications through the Bridgeport where I lived as a kid. There was tremendous amount of ill feeling between the private -- some members of the private bar and legal services. And, of course, Bruce Berwald was the director. And I always used to laugh. Bruce was a pretty steady Eddie guy, but as the director, he had a picture of Jake Avera (ph) in his office, which I always said would defend the masses even today. NORMAN JANES: As I recall that picture was visible from Main Street as well, so -- HON. RAYMOND NORKO: Well, Bruce never went on his way to rub it in, but the office -- I mean, the office was filled with people that had a dynamic interest in serving poor people, uniform -- even though they didn't -- I mean, the competitiveness among the attorneys was vicious. Among ourselves. But we always had a docket of about eight to ten federal cases 8 pending in one form or another, and people have to remember in the '70s federal court was open door. You had three-judge panels for everything that was constitutionally challenging as statute, and that got to be such a burden that they formally eliminated that after a while, the three-judge panels. NORMAN JANES: Can we go back and talk a little bit about the reaction of the local bar and the judiciary? Can you say a little bit more about the problem that you had? HON. RAYMOND NORKO: Yeah. I think that the local bar viewed us as interlopers, wiseguys, hippies, whatever you want to -- whatever you wanted to call us, and then we would interfere with their ability to earn a living. They were -- that was the major position they took, and I don't want to say it took -- it had a force in how you worked as a legal aid lawyer. You were always conscious of that. Judiciary wasn't exactly famous for opening arms because they always looked at us what constitutional amendment are we challenging. I always remember the first time I appeared in front of Judge Bloomfield. That was the first thing he asked me. What consti- -- another legal aid lawyer? What amendment are you challenging? The 1st, the 5th, 9 the 14th? Then he looked down at the papers, and I sued a doctor and his nurse for conducting illegal search _______ poor people's houses, and he almost had a heart attack on the bench. But he granted everything I wanted, so I have to always have that as a postscript. NORMAN JANES: We wanted to get a flavor of what the atmosphere in the legal aid office was in those days. You talked about it a little bit. Is there any more -- you say about the collegiality or lack thereof, the attitude, the feeling of young ______+ lawyers in those days? NORMAN JANES: They were a very aggressive crew. The first -- the first door was not state courts. The first door was the federal court, and if you did that, you obviously had counsel, you had big bills coming out of those particular lawsuits; and the citizenry was not happy in a lot occasions, thought that we were a little aloof and arrogant, which in some cases we were. NORMAN JANES: And is there any difference, in your mind, in your recollection between your experience in Danielson in the early '70s and your experience in Hartford as you got into the later '70s and early '80s? HON. RAYMOND NORKO: 10 There's been a progression of love towards legal services, that it sort of happened underneath my watch. I mean, when I was in legal services in Hartford, it wasn't as difficult because it wasn't a close-knit community such as Willimantic area was, and some of the players, and there were certain players in the Willimantic and Danielson area that hated legal services with a passion and would do everything to disrupt the ability to practice law _______. When it got into Hartford, it sort of gets fused out because you have such a large geographical area. Your funders are different. I remember I had offices in Enfield. I had an office in Bristol. So I was -- I was dealing in multiple jurisdictions at a time. What has amazed me mostly is that the change of attitude towards legal services in the past ten years has been astronomical, and that is also -- I am stunned every time I look at the reception that legal services receives these days, compared to what we had to fight through when we were beginning. NORMAN JANES: You mentioned some of the legal issues that you worked on, but what would -- what would you say were the major legal issues facing the poor -- the low income community when you started and then in your experience what -- how 11 they've changed over the period of time when you were involved? HON. RAYMOND NORKO: Housing was always having enough -- adequate income from the social services systems. Welfare was always an issue. (Phone ringing) call me _________+ calls me. Social Security was a major piece. Income determinations, Welfare, food stamps, things of that nature always took our time. Housing was an enormous -- poor people had a very difficult time. Section 8 came in. That presented issues. Dealing with HUD and the various federal agencies was very difficult. NORMAN JANES: So from -- are there particular cases or clients or events that stand out for you and from your experience? HON. RAYMOND NORKO: Well, Maggie Cline, who was the one that was in-state, out-of-state tuition, which we took to the Supreme Court. I got a seat to watch Justice Douglas at that particular time, not say a word and then vote against us, which of course crushed me. But Jim Servant (ph) brought the case against HUD in which he got a -- I think it was something like $60 million verdict. I'll never forget. I was in the office in Willimantic when the call came in saying that there's a check for $60 million, and no bank would 12 take it over the weekend. And of course Jim left the program to distribute those funds throughout the United States. It was a class action that affected everybody in the country. The dockets were so ________ in relation to -- we shared a lot in working with each other. We shared a tolerance on each other's issues and ideas. White V Matthews has always been my most favorite because it -- it basically affected the entire United States and thousands and thousands of people before the government could fight to reverse it. I've always found that as my strongest issue that I participated in. NORMAN JANES: So what impact did the funding -- the source of the funding or program structure have on your work? HON. RAYMOND NORKO: You live day-to-day. I mean, there was a time that we had to sue Governor Meskill for him to pay the contract fee to the program. When I was in -- when I was at Hartford, I sued the _____ and Manchester for racial discrimination. I mean, that was horrible as far as funding. Everybody went after my money instantly. It was a time when I was at the legal aid society I represented a Nazi war criminal. Judge Sheldon, who's now the appellate court, Judge Shelton and I represented Bruno Kaninskis 13 (ph). At that point my major funding sources was the United Way, and I can tell you, we had trouble with that one also. People tried to punish you through your money, and they could mask their punishment with the program determinations, things of that nature. They were very difficult to deal with. As a director of the legal aid society, I was always chasing money every day. We never were secure in your funding and number of people that you could afford to hire and keep working. NORMAN JANES: Do you think that those funding issues, did they influence either individual cases that you did or didn't take or priorities in any way? HON. RAYMOND NORKO: Hopefully not, but probably yes. NORMAN JANES: So what was the impact on the rest of your legal career or your experiences working for legal aid? HON. RAYMOND NORKO: Well, when I said the legal aid society, I was telling Dwight Merriam (ph) the government -- when Reagan came in, cut the community service -- community development block grant money by about 40 percent, 20 percent, somewhere in there, which presented a real problem for Governor 14 O'Neill, and he had two lieutenants, Steve Heinz (ph) and Howard Rifkin (ph) that basically adopted a procedure on the University of Indiana called Strategic Investments Strategy, and basically what that did is through the municipal governments, the state agencies and the nonprofits all in one room with no rules. I ended up representing the nonprofits, which was about 1,500 nonprofits, and you can't imagine the blood on the floor on that particular issue and when you devalue the handicap versus the blind, versus the legal services, where do they all fit financially? It took six months for the first agreement to be worked out. The governor was always appreciative, and his corporate counsel at that time was Jay Jackson, was always appreciative of the effort that the legal services people made to help solve the problem. And that helped me become a judge, I believe. NORMAN JANES: So if you had to say what was the -- summarize in a few words whether or not or how you think you made a difference from your career in legal aid, and what would -- I guess the other question would be what would you do differently if you could go back now to the 1970s and -- HON. RAYMOND NORKO: 15 I hate to tell you this, Norman, but nothing. NORMAN JANES: Nothing. Okay. Fair enough very good. HON. RAYMOND NORKO: No. You don't make -- as a legal aid lawyer, you're sort of a crew. The crew rows in one direction. If the crew's successful, the crew gets that success attributed to them. It takes -- it takes someone to lead the crew, meld the crew, work the crew and result with the crew, and I think that's one of the things I learned in legal services. It was always an interesting attraction. I mean, when I was a director of Legal Aid Society, I had 14 lawyers working for me, and I can tell you at times I thought I had 14 babies working for me. Very difficult people to deal with because they were very precise in their enunciation and allocution and targets. If you said A in ________ there was probably B, C, D and E mentioned before the A gets sounded as a vowel. Very interesting crews to work. And they were -- they were basically shaped by some of the adversity of the bar and some of the adversity of what they brought. I mean, still today you still see some lawsuits that you sort of think about and say, well, is that in the best interest of legal services, but that's not the issue. It's the best interest of the client. 16 NORMAN JANES: We've come to the end of the formal questions, but I'm wondering if there's anything else that you'd like to either be remembered for or that you think that others should know about those -- particularly the early years of legal aid in Connecticut? HON. RAYMOND NORKO: I think one of the things that helped me in legal services was I joined the bar association and worked through the bar association. I think that was a smart decision on my part, because when you were sitting beside ________ couldn't distinguish you from the rest of the population. You were just one of the guys or girls. I think that's important. I think that what legal services has learned to do is participate politically in the process and work with all players both -- on both sides of the aisles, both for and against. And I think that's a lesson we sort of -- we fought rather than joined when we were at the beginning, and we had paid -- perpetuated the fighting moment for a little longer than it should have been. However, it was -- it was a crew of people that basically would fight first and ask questions later. And it didn't matter -- they want to represent the client 100 percent, and that's exactly what they did, 17 regardless of the fallout to the programs. NORMAN JANES: Thank you very much, Ray, for taking the time to share these remembrances. Again, this is Norm Janes. It's the 24th of June, 2013, and we were just finishing interview with Ray -- Raymond R. Norco, now a Supreme Court Judge and a long-time legal aid lawyer and supporter of legal aid in Connecticut. HON. RAYMOND NORKO: Let me just jump in there, Norm. The bar foundation, which I've been on the board for like 20 something years, just got kicked off, which is ironic, was one source of steady pro legal services people, very intelligent lawyers, very committed people to society -- equality and society, and that -- that's a vehicle that stepped in on various occasions. I mean, legal services would come in and I was in charge of the grant committee, and we used to get into little bouts of how much money to give to them. But it turned out that we both watched each other's interests successfully, I think. I think the bar foundation was an important organization that came along at the right time with the right people. NORMAN JANES: And your role in it was -- HON. RAYMOND NORKO: 18 Di minimus. NORMAN JANES: No, no, no, not at all. Very important. HON. RAYMOND NORKO: I do what I had to do. And I think I did what -- I tried to do what was necessary in order to keep the ship afloat. NORMAN JANES: And well you did. HON. RAYMOND NORKO: Thank you, sir. NORMAN JANES: Anything you want to add or ask, Dwight? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We can add as an addendum to it, just over your head on the wall, point it out and ask him. Little bit here. After our interview, it occurred that looming in the background was whatever. NORMAN JANES: Okay. Right. I want people who are viewing this to understand why there's a rat over my head, Ray, if you could tell us what that is about. HON. RAYMOND NORKO: All right. Well, the rat -- the rat becomes part of the community court process. I should talk -- I should 19 talk about that a little. NORMAN JANES: Yes. I think that's an important story. HON. RAYMOND NORKO: The people in St. Augusta church, which is about two miles down the road here, were very unhappy on the way quality of life offenses were happening and handling in GA14. So they basically went to New York and looked at Rudy Giuliani's community court there, liked what they saw, came back, interests the mayor. The mayor was a very positive -- that's Mike Peters, very practical man, came to judicial with $800,000 of weed and seed money, which is ironic how it's called, but it's called -- and went to judicial and said we need a community court. Judge -- the administrative judge was there, _________ he called me. Originally I said no because I thought it was too close to legal aid work. And then I went home that night and I thought about it, and I thought putting the structure together would be worth the price of admission. It took me 18 months, and one of the things after became successful, the city kept on asking me to do different things. And one of the things they wanted me to do was basically criminally enforce mouse -- rat infestation. And I told them I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it, and they must have asked me 20 20 times. Finally, I declared officially that if they find me a rat with a criminal intent then I'll do it. So when I left the court for the first time, that's what the little statue with the rat hanging on it ________ is significant of, so -- NORMAN JANES: Thank you. HON. RAYMOND NORKO: You're welcome. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you, Ray. HON. RAYMOND NORKO: Thank you.