The former commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) has joined Hartford law firm Shipman & Goodwin LLP as a partner.
Joette Katz, who led DCF for eight years under former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, is a new partner in Shipman’s business litigation practice group, the company announced Monday. She will work in the firm’s Hartford and Stamford offices.
The firm’s business litigation group has almost 70 attorneys that represent clients in state and federal courts throughout the U.S. in a variety of subjects.
Katz’s duties will vary at Shipman, including serving the firm’s practitioners who handle federal, state and administrative appeals. She will also provide mediation services as a mediator, in addition to assisting the firm’s clients undergoing government and internal investigations.
The former Connecticut Supreme Court associate justice will also support Shipman’s pro bono services, providing legal services for underserved and underprivileged populations.
Katz served the Connecticut Supreme Court for nearly two decades, handling about 2,500 cases and authoring nearly 500 opinions.
Prior to serving on the bench, Katz was assistant public defender and chief of legal services for the Office of the Chief Public Defender and during that time co-authored “Connecticut Criminal Case Law Handbook: A Practitioner’s Guide” published by the Connecticut Law Tribune.
Katz has also taught at Connecticut’s three law schools: Yale Law School, Quinnipiac University School of Law, and at her alma mater, the University of Connecticut School of Law. She is also currently an associate fellow at undergraduate residential college Trumbull College at Yale University.
Shipman says it has 170-plus attorneys in offices in Connecticut, New York and Washington, D.C.
At DCF, Katz is being succeeded by Vannessa Dorantes, a regional administrator at the agency and staffer there since 1992.
