Much of the legal heft in Fairfield County ”” 80 attorneys ”” put their daybooks aside May 16 for the local iteration of the national 16th annual Law Day, sponsored by the Greenwich Bar Association at the Indian Harbor Yacht Club in Greenwich.
The event included a speech by Christopher Murphy, Connecticut”™s Democratic junior U.S. senator, and awards to attorney Dorothy Matthews Freeburg for pro bono work and to Chitra Shanbhogue for her work with the information-themed Community Answers, based in the Greenwich Library.
Matthews Freeburg received the Robert G. Krause Probate Pro Bono Award and Shanbhogue the Liberty Bell Award.
This year”™s Law Day theme was “American Democracy and the Rule of Law: Why Every Vote Matters.”
Murphy said democracy is underserved by the huge amounts of money required to run for office. “In my three terms in the House of Representatives before I was elected to the Senate ”” two-year terms ”” I spent four hours every day holed up in a room making calls requesting money. That”™s four hours every day that I was not spending getting to know my Republican colleagues and their concerns. Years ago, Republicans and Democrats met after hours. Now all we do is raise money at night; there”™s no time to get together.”
The day”™s theme was civil rights and the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act and 49th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. Murphy said, “I am not equating campaign finance with the civil rights movement. It is a much smaller, yet vexing, problem.” He drew a laugh when he said, “I don”™t hear a lot about campaign finance reform in the supermarket.”
Murphy said he raised three times as much money with an email that blasts the GOP compared with one that is legislative in nature. “The root of troubles is the need to get money,” he said. He also addressed gun control, saying 80 percent to 90 percent of Americans favor background checks for purchases, and the need to rein in taxpayer-supported, for-profit colleges with low academic returns. He cited a single college that collects $1.6 billion in student aid payments annually, despite what he termed huge defaults. “It”™s a terrible investment of taxpayer dollars,” he said.
Murphy, a UConn Law School graduate, was “raised in the law.” His father, Scott Murphy, is Shipman & Goodwin L.L.P. managing partner in Hartford. Both father and son attended Williams College in Massachusetts.
Event sponsors were Northern Trust in Greenwich and Rand Insurance, with county offices in New Canaan and Riverside.
