1 INTERVIEW SUBJECT: Hon. Charles Gill INTERVIEW DATE: November 11, 2013 TRANSCRIBER: Jodie Algarin TRANSCRIPTION DATE: September 26, 2023 2 MS. KELLY MCKEON: Hi, Judge Gill. HON. CHARLES GILL: Good morning. MS. KELLY MCKEON: My name is Kelly McKeon, and today I have the pleasure of interviewing Judge Gill. It's November 11, 2013. I am conducting the interview as part of the Connecticut Foundation's James W. Cooper Fellow's History of Legal Services in Connecticut Project. Judge Gill, would you mind starting off by giving us a brief timeline of your active involvement in legal aid, how you got started in legal aid and when? HON. CHARLES GILL: All right. Very unusual at the beginning for a position, I can tell you. It began in August of 1963. At that time I was married and between my second and third year of law school, and I had a side job which was -- I was a certified softball umpire, and I just finished doing the top game _______ fast pitch in Connecticut, and I gave it up. Except I got a call, Judge -- I wasn't a judge then, lawyer, attorney, would you please come out and do the ________ job for us underprivileged kids, two teams. It was a Sunday morning. They talked me into it. I 3 figured I'd have some help, you know? So I went out there, and the teams were out there. There's a huge crowd. I couldn't believe there was so many people there for 17 and under softball. It was slow pitch. So first pitch comes and I call the ball a strike, and the other side starts screaming at me _______ as possible. So I went, whoa, take it easy, folks. Call next pitch, the other side starts the same thing on me. So, finally, I call both coaches over. I said, look, can't work this way. If you do that again, I'll forfeit. They said, you don't know what a strike -- I said I was the guy who wrote strikes on softball -- soft -- slow pitch softball. I was one of the three. So anyhow, next pitch then again they got on me. Said that's it. I take my mask and I started walking away, and I got________. They all came at me with baseball bats and everything else, and I got whacked -- I put my hands up like this to stop the punches and the bats, but I got a punch here and split my lip all the way around_______. I'm bleeding like anything. Then I fought my way back to my car. They broke a window. I drove off. Long story short _________ some friends, I got a doctor to see me. I didn't want to go to________, and he put eight stitches in here without Novocaine. 4 MS. KELLY MCKEON: I'm sure that did not feel good. HON. CHARLES GILL: He said, look, you're a lawyer. If you're going to be a lawyer, you got to talk and this will distort your mouth. Now, I did that. So little later on in the day -- my dad was president of the board of police commissioners, so he had some in. The cops brought in this whole line of like 10 or 12 kids, and they said go down the line and pick out who hit you, right? At the end I said, I can't do that. I mean, I don't know. I don't remember. He said, pick any five. I said, I don't operate that way. I said, what if I pick one of the kids that was trying to help me? You know, it's just not just. Well, that story got back to one of the outlanders. Outlanders are people that my friend Dick Lee, Mayor, had brought in to run the City of New Haven. In other words, redevelopment directive was from New York. The traffic guy was in Boston, you know? So -- and all the guys in legal aid they come in, like Frank Dineen. They were called outlanders. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Okay. HON. CHARLES GILL: 5 So that story got back, anyhow, to the powers that be, including James Cooper. So I got this call -- I guess they decided that maybe for the first neighborhood legal services lawyer they probably should have a homie rather than, you know, another guy from Brooklyn or someplace. So that's how I got the job, not on merit. And my wife wanted to go back from D.C., so that's what I did. We came back, and I never regretted a moment of it. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Great. Now, what office did you start in? HON. CHARLES GILL: Well, we opened the first office on law day, 1965, on Congress Avenue, and at that time there was a slight stress in my life. We just had our second child, and some members of the bar association were very upset with this program, and they were trying to apply for an arrest warrant for me for the illegal of practice of law by the Ford Foundation. We _______ by a corporation, the Ford Foundation. So my wife says, in your first job you're going to get arrested? So anyhow, one of my great professor friends at Yale law school got ahold of a Supreme Court justice who came down and cut the ribbon, and that put away all the fears of being arrested when the justice came down. So that was it, and it was a nice ceremony. All people in 6 the neighborhood gathered around, lawyers, professors and people of interest, even a few politicians were there. And it was a very momentous day, but I still remember it very well. MS. KELLY MCKEON: What was it like in the beginning working for legal aid? HON. CHARLES GILL: Well, everything was brand new, okay? I had worked while we're waiting for the neighborhood office to open, which was the pool hall at one time. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Wow. HON. CHARLES GILL: It was also a bookie joint. The building was owned by a slum landlord who eventually we converted -- he became very supportive of us. Morris -- I forget his last name. So in any event, we went there, I had one secretary and -- Jen, and her last name was Black, and that was it. That was our office, you know. They put in some desks and typewriters, of course, in there, but we tried to get a bathroom working, which did work on occasion. It did not work when the justice came down from the Supreme Court. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Gosh. 7 HON. CHARLES GILL: Little embarrassing. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Yeah. HON. CHARLES GILL: But in any event, we put our sign out, and it was in Time Magazine, I think, and Wall Street Journal had a picture of the law office with a sign, Neighborhood Legal Assistance. People didn't know quite what we were, but I was kind of social. I went around and stopped in the bars, the stores, talked to people, and I did know a few people in that neighborhood, which helped. So eventually the folks came to know what we were doing, and when they came _________ just about everything you can think of even, though the bar argued that we had -- there was no need for this. We had 1,500 clients the first year. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Wow. HON. CHARLES GILL: And eventually we got some Yale law students to come in, volunteer to help me. Among them is Hugh Price, famous guy. I don't know if you know Hugh Price. And -- he was a law professor at Princeton, by the way. And so we -- we stumbled through, and eventually I caught on and 8 people caught on that they could trust us, so there was all kinds of crime in the neighborhood. Nothing ever touched us. And the experience was mind boggling for me coming from a conservative Roman Catholic family seeing other cultures. I was totally trusted. I was invited to -- which would astound my mom and dad -- to the baptism of they call it illegitimate child, you know. I've been in people's homes. I was eating with the druggies. ________ directing with them. I never turn them in, but I had their trust. And eventually besides the lots, we were doing two other things. One was organizing them to help themselves. So we actually helped organize about seven self-help groups in the neighborhood. Two of the most outstanding were HAG, Hill Action Group, and the other one was the Spanish-American Association of New Haven, which I was one of the founders of with a guy named Silverio Diez Colon (ph) who was a Korean War veteran. It's appropriate on this date that we mention that. So that got going, and we did everything. I mean, everything from -- one kid had a loose tooth, they all came in, you know, Pedro and I pulled it, okay? I said count to three and pull it. MS. KELLY MCKEON: 9 So you're a dentist and a lawyer. HON. CHARLES GILL: I pulled it on two, you know. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Wow. HON. CHARLES GILL: So I was a medic in the Army, so I knew some of my stuff, and we did little things like that. So everybody trusted us. That was important. Then I realized that their problems were more than just -- just social things. People worked -- there was a book out called the Poor Pay More, which I read and I think everyone listening should read, because these people were being taken advantage of by everybody. For example, the used car dealer in town in the area was called Jimmy the Jip, okay? And they'd come in and say, Judge -- I mean, Attorney Gill, I bought this car for 200 bucks. It broke down. Who did you buy it from? Jimmy the Jip. I go, hello. And then they buy furniture on consignment and they make payments, the payments never ended. They'd ________ a paper, then the interest was like 22 percent, so you had a deal with that. So Janet and I actually were sitting down people giving them a budget, and I'd be arguing with their creditors, okay? And getting them 10 down, threaten to do this with them, that with them. So he made a lot of things disappear. But the other thing also that we did there that was kind of interesting, again, emphasizing getting to know the people, because they were afraid to go downtown to legal aid office, okay? They didn't know _______ downtown ________, and so everything happened within their neighborhood. We were there and made a tremendous difference. First year there, besides the cases I've mentioned, we handled -- well, you name the case, we did it, you know, from -- we didn't do divorces because those folks weren't getting divorced. But we did the criminal, all kinds of civil, defendants and _________ plaintiffs case we send out to the regular lawyers as opposed to their regular lawyers. But it was a charming influence on me in my entire life. It changed my view of people, and if you'd like to hear about a few cases I did to point that out. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Certainly. I would like to get to that. I would just like to jump back -- HON. CHARLES GILL: Sure. MS. KELLY MCKEON: 11 -- real quick to the self-help groups that you were talking about. HON. CHARLES GILL: Yeah, yeah. MS. KELLY MCKEON: How did those get formed? What was sort of the thought process in forming those? HON. CHARLES GILL: Well, Silverio Diez Colon and I sat down at a bar, and we said let's do this. So he said okay. So we ended up with our 400 members. We rented a top floor of a commercial building on Grant Avenue. We had a grand opening. I was the opening speaker, and I made a huge boo-boo. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: My wife could read and write Spanish, so I'd write my speech in English, and she'd write it in Spanish. So I went up, I said is (speaking Spanish) Charles Gill. (speaking Spanish). I would like to -- then I tried to tell them that (speaking Spanish) English clothing and (speaking Spanish) my car, okay? Well, I got to (speaking Spanish) he started to go -- my wife put the feminine in, so I was saying I wear English dresses, okay? 12 MS. KELLY MCKEON: _________. HON. CHARLES GILL: They were very polite, but I could -- _____ asked me, they said you're a cross dresser or something. So that was kind of fun. And then the -- they actually started the Spanish-American parade. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Wow. HON. CHARLES GILL: And I was the -- oddly enough, later on I was the Grand Marshal of St. Patrick's Day Parade in New Haven, but I was also the Grand Marshal of the first Spanish-American Association. Sitting up in the back of a convertible with a big hat on, you know, and _______ they were playing music. It was great fun. MS. KELLY MCKEON: So did you run these meetings or -- HON. CHARLES GILL: No. I just -- I set them up. MS. KELLY MCKEON: And so they sort of evolved? HON. CHARLES GILL: They evolved, yeah. MS. KELLY MCKEON: 13 _________ it was a community -- HON. CHARLES GILL: It was a community thing. MS. KELLY MCKEON: -- that was running them? HON. CHARLES GILL: Yes, yep. And then five others sprung up. There was another group eventually called themselves Seven Together, seven different groups all usually minorities and disadvantaged people. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Okay. HON. CHARLES GILL: So that was kind of -- MS. KELLY MCKEON: Interesting. HON. CHARLES GILL: It was nice. MS. KELLY MCKEON: So why don't we talk about some of the memorable cases, memorable clients. HON. CHARLES GILL: Okay, yeah. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Any stories in particular that stand out to you? 14 HON. CHARLES GILL: Sure. The first one when I wrote ______ piece I did in 1966 on this was I call him George X at the time. George came up from the deep south, had nine children, his wife had one leg. They were living in ghastly situations. He had a job at the time I think paid about $100 a week, and there's no way they were going to make it. So I eventually helped them all the way along the line using my political contacts to get them into public housing. I got other groups that helped with her -- she needed a new artificial leg. I told _______ Welfare, okay? He was trying to be _______, but the only answer for them at that time for the help they need was Welfare. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: So seems odd to say that, but that was the solution, temporarily. Eventually he received some more education. I think he became a chef or something like that, and eventually they pulled themselves out of it. But with nine kids coming up, you know, they had nothing. So, you know, I felt very badly about it. And I didn't know things like that were happening to Americans, but I sure found out quickly. 15 Another case was -- this guy's name was John, and he wasn't very competent nor was his wife as individuals and as parents. They had three girls, and somehow or other they came to the attention of the Department of Children and Family, which I'm not sure was even in existence then. It was just coming into existence. So I was -- John used to come and take pictures of me all the time. I don't know why. It was just a picture. That was his affliction, so he -- he came in and told me there was an awful thing happening. He said the State came and took away his three daughters. Said they were in juvenile court and he said________. So I went down with him to juvenile court, and of course I met his wife. She had never seen a dentist in her life, poor thing. She had -- you know, totally absent of teeth. So I went into the juvenile court on Orange Street in New Haven and went in and I told them I was there to represent John and his wife. So out come the three girls running at them, mom, dad, you can't believe this. We slept in our own beds last night. We have new pajamas, okay? I'm thinking, gee whiz, you know? ________. So now we get to the trial. They want to terminate the parental rights of these two parents. Why? The 16 alleged social worker had gone to the house and found a photograph on the wall of Joseph Goebbels, the famous Nazi, right? In the bathtub there were turtles, okay? Can't make these things up. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Live turtles? HON. CHARLES GILL: Live turtles in the bathtub, so they're, of course, not using the bathtub. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Right. HON. CHARLES GILL: Three girls and mom and dad. So I'm -- so we're going to start the thing, and there was a judge there. I can't think of his name, and I said, I'm here to represent the parents. He said, all right, have a seat. He said we'll get started. He _______ call my first witness. I said, wait a minute, Your Honor, I would like to have a court reporter here so we can have a record of what's going on here. We don't use them. I said, we don't? I said, I'm going to have to stop the proceedings and I'll have to go to another court and get an order. So after some more intimidation from him, he finally -- we got a court reporter over there. So then he calls up his social worker, and she testifies about 17 the turtles and the picture and a few other things. So when she finishes, he says, you can step down. I said, well, Your Honor, I would like to cross examine her. You want to cross examine my witness, he said? I said, I don't know if it's your witness or what, but I think I have a right to cross examine. So he reluctantly allowed me to do so. And it ends up the witness for the State had a major -- English major in college, okay? She had practically no training in this area. She did not understand some of the terms she used in her report like________. So I think -- I lost, but I kind of think on appeal maybe Frank or somebody like that won. Because he used to visit me. Again ________ picture, picture, picture. And the girls apparently -- I checked once on them, and they were doing pretty well in school, but I think what they did was get, like, mentors for them. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Okay. HON. CHARLES GILL: Which is something I'm into right now, as a matter of fact. _______. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Was that type of reaction by judges in the court when 18 there was legal aid attorneys representing clients common at that point in time or -- MS. KELLY MCKEON: Yeah. well, It certainly was in juvenile court. I think it varied in the other courts, circuit court, common pleas and superior court. I remember one case, the first criminal case I tried, young man -- two young men were charged with robbing an older man at knifepoint, at his throat, and I was a neophyte. I went over there for the pretrial, and they thought because I was a newbie and a legal aid guy that if they put me on trial I'd fold, but they didn't know I prepared. I was ready. I didn't even know they had a pretrial and then had a trial later on. I thought you went right into it. That's how dumb I was. So we started picking a jury. I picked a jury, we start the case, and they put the victim on the stand. And I made a huge, huge lawyer's mistake. I got him to describe the knife to his neck, and of course _______ then it got this, then it got this bigger, then it got this bigger and this bigger, and when it got to this big I should have just shut up, but I didn't. So I turned to the jury and I said, do you mean, Mr. Johnson, that the knife put to your neck was actually this big, about a yard? And he said, well, it 19 sure did look like it when it's up to your neck. ________ great move, Attorney Gill. But then I -- you know, I thought I was dead in the case. I don't know what possessed me, but I went up and I got very close to him. Now, this was like 11:00 in the morning, and I could smell alcohol on him. So I said to him, Mr. Johnson, are you a drinking man? And the State's attorney, ________ Marco (ph), and he said, I object, Your Honor. And Mr. Johnson said, I object, too, Your Honor, okay? So I turned to the jury, I was smiling. I said, well, if you both object, there must be a reason. So what happened was as -- in redirect, Marco started talking to him and the guy started to back off, so he called a recess, and apparently the guy, said you know, I'm really not sure which one of those two guys did it. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Wow. HON. CHARLES GILL: So the case was _________ dismissed, dismissed. My first case in, and I won. And I still don't know who did it or didn't do it. I do know that I had one guy for sure go to jail when he was totally innocent, because I represented the guilty guy, and I told that to the State's 20 attorney. I said I know who did it. He's going to do a year in jail, and they wouldn't do it. So I had to -- injustice was done, an injustice to this day still. Bothers me to no end, you know? So that's that. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Let talk a little bit about your mentors or any memorable colleagues maybe at legal aid or outside of legal aid. HON. CHARLES GILL: Well, the first one was Frank Dineen when he was working in legal aid New Haven, and I moved to an office next to him, and that's when I learned ________ a wizard at keeping people in their homes, finding defects in -- used to be evictions were like automatic, like collection lawyers would automatically win, but we sort of -- he put an end to it, and I learned how to put an end to it. And as long as we stood up for people, they'd usually back down on the other side. And we virtually put, I think, eviction lawyers out of business and a lot of collection lawyers out of business. So that's one kind of a good memory there. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. What was the reaction of the private bar to legal aid, you know, and the reaction and the judiciary view; do you recall? 21 HON. CHARLES GILL: Sure. We had a meeting of the bar in major courthouse on Elm Street, and they wouldn't let Fred Danforth in. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Wow. HON. CHARLES GILL: Okay? That's how tight it was. So there was the big flock of lawyers who were the, you know, the collection lawyers. And then there were the do-gooders like Jim Cooper and other people from other firms and just regular good guys and ladies. And it was kind of a vitriolic evening, as I recall, decided to vote, but rather than hand vote, as I recall, we moved to one side of the room, to the other side of the room; and I was proud to be on the side of the room ________ for my job. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Yeah. HON. CHARLES GILL: So -- and that's how it came about. And I think the fear of most of the bar dissipated over time because -- MS. KELLY MCKEON: Why do you think there was the fear in the beginning? HON. CHARLES GILL: Well, they're like doctors, I suppose. If you said 22 we're going to bring in neighborhood legal -- medical services and we'll take care of them for free. And they said, oh, wait a minute, you know, there goes my livelihood or something like that. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Okay. HON. CHARLES GILL: So I think that was kind of understandable for some, but I think they -- our bar came through quite good in the end, so -- MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: Wonderful people that were part of it in New Haven. MS. KELLY MCKEON: About how long do you think that took to have that attitude change towards legal aid attorneys? HON. CHARLES GILL: Probably a year. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Okay. HON. CHARLES GILL: Probably a year, my guess -- guesstimate. But it happened, and nobody thinks twice about it anymore. My only disappointment is they were still not in the 23 neighborhoods. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Okay. HON. CHARLES GILL: Because I think that, you know, made us up tight and personal with people. They trusted us. Now they got to come downtown again, you know. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: I don't know what their reasons for that. I'm sure there were good reasons, maybe financial reasons, but at the time in the neighborhood, I mean, that was just unbelievably good. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: And I think all the law students that came with us, including Roger Kuntz (ph) was one that came down. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: Okay. Stayed and hung out because they felt, you know -- it's one thing being a good doctor, good lawyer, a teacher, but seeing and feeling for the people you're 24 with, that's very important, and I certainly felt that. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Would you say that that's one of your fondest memories or your favorite things that you appreciated about your time in legal aid was actually working in the community? HON. CHARLES GILL: Correct. That's exactly right. I mean, I had more information about what was going on than any police department, CIA, or NSA could ever find out, okay? They trusted me. They told me things. I knew who was in trouble. I could get somebody, maybe a church to help. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: And some of the sort of very radical people were there, too, and I engaged them too, and they trusted me, too. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: And some ______ at meetings I start to speak and they go shh-shh, because they had something planned, you know, so I was going to mess it up by bringing logic to it. So I really got tight with them. And oddly enough, one of those leaders, when I was first on the bench in 1983, I was looking up and I saw this familiar name. I looked up, 25 and there was this guy who was one of the neighborhood radicals standing with his son in front of me, you know what I mean? MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: So it's -- it was kind of touching to do that. But, again, the trust was there. And today, even the people that come to ________ I'm sitting in Litchfield, Connecticut, people come in that are -- I don't know what you want to call them, underprivileged, whatever the favorite term is today. It varies. They don't trust. They don't trust their public defenders. They don't trust the judges. They don't trust the system. That's bad. And I'm working on projects now to try to educate the American public about what judges do and what the system is about and so forth and so on. But having a tough time doing it. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Do you think the trust really came because you were in the community? HON. CHARLES GILL: Yeah. MS. KELLY MCKEON: And -- yeah. 26 HON. CHARLES GILL: Because I went to their homes. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: One of my son's companies has 300 lawyers that are volunteering in Connecticut for pro bono work, but -- that's great, but you have to go and see where the people live and see about them. You learn so much by being there. I think that's maybe my personal quirk, but I kind of think ________ getting to know you, getting to know all about you. That's the way you do it one-on-one, not just in your office, but in their place. And if you're in their place, sometimes you see where they need help. Something you see, wow, this could be a health problem. I could help them out here, okay. MS. KELLY MCKEON: So how do you think young attorneys today, you know, gain the trust of their clients in the community? HON. CHARLES GILL: Well, it's because we don't have neighborhood law offices. That's the problem. But I would suggest young attorneys to learn -- would volunteer to be mentors to young men and women. 27 MS. KELLY MCKEON: Now, I know that you started a program where you're mentoring? HON. CHARLES GILL: I mentor. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Want to talk a little about that? HON. CHARLES GILL: Yeah. I mentor to Big Brothers and Sisters. I mentor to DCF. I mentor to private, five or six young men, successful, so far, about three or four. You know, I can't win all. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: But in all those cases, I went to their homes. I've eaten in their homes. I've been with them. I know their parents. Sometimes there's only one. Most cases there is only one parent, and some of the backgrounds these young men have and women -- _________ women -- young men are just horrific. You can't imagine them, and so -- I eventually sent some to prison. I have one family, third generation of sons in jail. Predictable behavior because they have incompetent parents to begin with, so that's the way it goes. 28 But the mentoring that I've done, one of my successes is now a teacher, and he was married in Florida. I was his best man. I could have been his grandfather. Another one of mine is an EMT going to become a nurse, and he's also _________ prodigy. I found him in a mental institution. Background was that his -- his father and mother were divorced when he was three. His father came home _________ and shot himself in front of him. He was the only child, and that affected __________+ and all that stuff, so I found him in a mental institution at a very young age. So that's what I think young lawyers can do, get involved in helping programs, Big Brothers, Big Sisters are fine, wherever else you can find it. And also don't look necessarily for -- I know some people aren't going to like this, but don't necessarily look for the big law firms, you know? And while you're in law school, it's important to do other things and connect. My daughter, when she was in law school, she worked with domestic violence programs outside. Make contacts that way with people and other lawyers, too, of course. Volunteer; do things. Don't just think law. Think the law and people. MS. KELLY MCKEON: 29 Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: And once we do that, we're on the right track. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Okay. So let's switch gears a little bit. HON. CHARLES GILL: Sure. MS. KELLY MCKEON: What was the funding like in sort of the program structure when you were working for legal aid? HON. CHARLES GILL: Well, it started out ________ legal assistance didn't exist when I was there. It was in planning stages. So I was hired by Community Progress Incorporated, Ford Foundation, right? So I was paid by them, and they sent me over to sit next to Frank Dineen, which I did, until it was later formed, and then it was about a year later that we opened the first law office. We actually opened two the same day, but only one got _________+. So -- but that's it. That's the story of the start of -- the funding I never had anything to do with. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: That just came from Ford Foundation, Ford Foundation. 30 MS. KELLY MCKEON: So there was never a shortage. Did you feel like there was ever a shortage? HON. CHARLES GILL: I don't think there was a shortage at that time. And then of course when you went -- when the Ford Foundation -- when it dried up in that transition, I wasn't there. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Okay. HON. CHARLES GILL: So I think then you had to get money from the bar associations and, you know, all that _________ collect money. MS. KELLY MCKEON: And how long did you spend at legal aid? HON. CHARLES GILL: Little over two years. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Okay. HON. CHARLES GILL: '64 to '66. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Okay. And what did you do after you left legal aid? HON. CHARLES GILL: 31 I was hired by the Jacobs Law Firm in New Haven. Spent a few years with them and then _________ partnership at another firm, and went there. And, unfortunately, in that firm which _________ wonderful people, I was the only one who went to court, and it became an awful burden. You don't want to hear about it. And then it was during that time that -- ________ my next door neighbor, Mayor Dick Lee, when he quit he told me about it, and I thought I could take his place, so there were three candidates. One had been running for six months, the other one was going to be the party-endorsed guy and then myself. So I had a six-week campaign. I got 25 percent of the vote, which is not bad. The guy that was in campaign for six month got about 35 percent of the votes. So the guy who won got under 50 percent, and actually we're friends. We're on the board of _________ together, and he asked me to come and help. I got on the Board of Education for him. I ran the air pollution control advisory committee for him. And, unfortunately, he just went one term and had a very sudden death, so that was it. And still had a lot of memories of all those people. I mean, good people. Even the outlanders were good, like Frank Dineen and Howard Muskoff (ph), all those guys who -- a lot of Yale 32 people, you know? Professors who had a great deal of interest in this -- ___________ professional endeavor. I hope saved a lot of people. I know we did. I know we did, because I had very few people going to jail under my watch. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: And also the chief prosecutor at the time had also run for mayor on Republican ticket. He was a neighbor of mine, name is Phil Mancini. He became a judge, too. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Okay. HON. CHARLES GILL: And he had -- he had Charlie Gill there at the courthouse. We go into his office and have a pile of my files, and he used to get mad at me because _______ not guilty, not guilty, you know, and really give him a tough time, as most lawyers do today, right? So he brought me in and Friday afternoon, Charlie Gill ______ and sit down with him. He'd go 100 fine ________+, $50 fine. He doesn't have 50. 25. Okay. And we get rid of all these cases. ________ come in Monday or Tuesday and get all my cases gone. They were looking for anybody to get jail time, and 33 so we -- things were different then. People weren't as punitive as they are today wanting everybody to go to jail for every little crime, so it wasn't that hard for me to do. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: And all the prosecutors were part-time, so God forbid they had to do a trial or work a whole day or two days, you see. So we had a little leverage on them, too. Then we knew which ones did not want to go to trial, so we put our cases to them on the days they were on. Little things you don't learn in law school. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Yeah. HON. CHARLES GILL: You learn on the street. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Right. So what -- what would you say has been the biggest impact of your time spent at legal aid on the rest of your legal career throughout your time at, you know, the law firms and into your judgeship and even now as a mentor, what experience -- you know, overall, just broadly speaking, what did you learn from your time at legal aid? HON. CHARLES GILL: 34 Well, it's good and bad. The good was that I learned about people and I developed a larger heart and concern for them. The bad part was when I went in private practice, I had a tough time charging people. I was never thinking about money. So that probably aggravated my partners along the way. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. There's certainly tension there. HON. CHARLES GILL: Yeah, there is, and so I -- sort ________ real problem. I got into it with them. _________ like a pastor or something, you know. So maybe I overdid it in that area, but I -- and people come in with a problem, I look at their problem and I look at their wallet. Because I had _____ training legal aid in that area, see. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: I didn't care about money________. So that was -- but I think it's gone through my entire career as a lawyer, and then I became chief public defender for the State of Connecticut, organized all those public defenders. Eventually they became full time. They were all part-time when I came on. So I brought in people -- (Break it audio recording) 35 HON. CHARLES GILL: -- organized gave them little courses in sensitivity. We'd have private chats with those I thought were not sensitive. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: And then one day I got a call from my next door neighbor, Dick Lee, he says, Charlie, he said -- no, no. When I was marching in the St. Patrick's Day Parade I was -- I think I was the Grand Marshal that year or the year before. I was marching with Governor O'Neill, right? So he's waving his hat, you know, and we're talking, nothing to do about the parade, and all of a sudden he says, by the way I put your name in, Charlie. I said, oh, thank you. So I asked Dick. I said, what did he put my name in for? Become a judge, right. Guess what I did? Turned it down. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Really? HON. CHARLES GILL: I didn't think I was old enough, mature enough to do it, but five years later it happened. He put me as_______ but actually it was _________+ and then Govern O'Neill appointed me four or five years later. 36 MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: And so that was it. What was my first assignment? New Haven. And I did criminal trials here for four months before I moved down to Waterbury, you know, the usual _______. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. And have you had a lot of legal aid attorneys in front of you over the years? HON. CHARLES GILL: In my neck of the woods in Litchfield, it's kind of rare. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Okay. HON. CHARLES GILL: But we do see, you know, _________ you might see one or two. I think Hartford ________ Hartford on the civil side, and we'd see, you know, ________ get them out there. And I ________ from the -- what do they call the Children's Law Center? MS. KELLY MCKEON: Okay. HON. CHARLES GILL: That was done some years ago. It was a -- we had a 37 very bad case where a father, very dangerous father was allowed supervised visitation at a Catholic something or other, social_______, and he came in with a gun and he shot the nine-year old daughter, Iala (ph), and he shot the social worker. Killed the daughter. As a result of that, a woman who's a Quaker contacted me and asked if I could come over to that neck of the woods and put on a program for people to see what we could do. So I did. It was a snowy day. We had about 4- or 500 people showed up based in Connecticut, and I brought in people from Florida, Wisconsin, down south who were running children's programs. They all came in. They wanted to put on a PowerPoint. And then at the very end they asked me if I would go ahead and speak with 11 children who were in the court system. And I said, sure, but I have to sit in the same size seat they do. Not wear my jacket, and I don't want to hear a word from an adult, because we were in like one of those old classroom-type things where they do cadavers down below. So I went in, and I sat down with the little kids, and I have a little trick on memory, remembering names, so I went around and got their names, and I, of course, remembered them. One little girl was so upset that she asked permission to turn her chair -- her back to us, 38 all right? So I spoke about a half an hour, an hour, all of a sudden they're going like this to me, so we have to stop. They're all telling me about that whoas. I said, look, kids, let's do one more thing. I want you to get together. The youngest was probably 7, the oldest about 12. I said I want you to get together and come and tell me after you talk it over if you had a magic wand and could change one thing in the court system, what would it be. You know what they said? They were only in three minutes, they would want to see a judge. They would want to the judge. They ________ see a judge, things are being done in their lives they don't know about. Sometimes they hear things being said to a judge and isn't what they really feel, okay? So that made a big impact. So then I opened the children's law center. I was on the board over in Eastern Connecticut, and then they expanded into Hartford, eventually. So it was a nice -- that goes back to neighborhood stuff I was doing, easy enough, right? MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: There you have it. MS. KELLY MCKEON: 39 So just one final question. What advice -- HON. CHARLES GILL: How old am I? No. ________. MS. KELLY MCKEON: That's off the record. What advice would you give to future legal aid attorneys in Connecticut? HON. CHARLES GILL: Open your minds and your hearts. You know, to me law could be the most boring profession in the world sitting in the back room in a large corporate office working their way up the corporate ladder, so to speak. I like dealing with people. I don't like too much the academics that _______ plenty of that, of course. _________ big courts, but I think the advice would be to -- if you want to be happy the rest of your life, look for a job or position that has you in direct contact with people, because that's your real reward, you know? Like, if you're a coach and you see you're a player you'll score a basket or win a game or go on to success, you feel like you've really done something in life. It's not just about, to me, a matter of dollars. Never has been. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Uh-huh. HON. CHARLES GILL: So it's _________ open your heart, open your mind. 40 MS. KELLY MCKEON: Okay. HON. CHARLES GILL: Okay. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Well, thank you, Judge Gill. HON. CHARLES GILL: My pleasure. And you're doing a wonderful job. MS. KELLY MCKEON: Thank you.