Christine Stuart Photo
A New Haven career that started with basketball heroics at Wilbur Cross and then legal work for the Board of Ed reached a pinnacle Wednesday, as Gov. Dannel P. Malloy nominated his first state Supreme Court justice.
That nominee is New Haven’s Lubbie Harper, Jr.
Harper is currently an appellate judge. If confirmed he would replace Justice Joette Katz, who left the bench to head Malloy’s Department of Children and Families.
A plaque with Harper’s picture hangs in the lobby of Wilbur Cross High School — part of a Wall of Fame/Hall of Fame of the school’s best-ever student athletes.
Harper went on to a successful law career after earning undergraduate and law degrees from UConn. For years he served as a contract attorney for the Board of Education. He also briefly served as a City Hall-backed developer of affordable housing in the 1980s; then in the 1990s as a fundraiser and campaign chair for John DeStefano’s mayoral election bids. A state judgeship followed.
Pressured by then-New Haven State Rep. Bill Dyson to start appointing non-whites to top judgeships, then-Gov. M. Jodi Rell elevated Harper to the appellate court in 2005.
He filled in on the Supreme Court bench to join the majority in making same-sex marriage legal in Connecticut.
“Judge Harper is an experienced, talented and fair jurist, and he will be a welcomed addition to the court,” Malloy said in a press statement. “In his personal time, Judge Harper has given back extensively to his community and the state, and he is well respected both inside the legal community and out.”
“Justice Katz’s exemplary service to the Court leaves big shoes to fill, and I am honored to have this opportunity,” Harper said in the same press release.
Harper chairs the state criminal justice Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparity, serves as board president for New Haven legal aid, and tutors at Yale Law School.