judge norcott to address afternoon graduate commencement

Thu., May 22

The Honorable Flemming L. Norcott, Jr., Justice, Connecticut Supreme Court

The Honorable Flemming L. Norcott, Jr., currently an associate justice on the Connecticut Supreme Court, has served with distinction for nearly 30 years as a Connecticut judicial officer and has received local, state, and national recognition for his professional and community work.

Born in New Haven, Justice Norcott graduated in 1961 from The Taft School. He earned a bachelor of arts from Columbia University in 1965 and a juris doctor from Columbia School of Law in 1968. Upon graduating from law school, Justice Norcott entered the Peace Corps as a volunteer in Kenya, where he served as a lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of East Africa in Nairobi.

He then served on the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation's Legal Staff in New York City and later as an Assistant Attorney General in the United States Virgin Islands. He was the co-founder and executive director of the Center for Advocacy, Research, and Planning, Inc., in New Haven. Prior to his appointment to the bench, he also served as a hearing examiner for the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities.

In New Haven, Justice Norcott began his career as a Connecticut officer of the court. He was appointed as a Superior Court judge from 1979 to 1987, and then served for the next five years on the Appellate Court bench. He was elevated to Connecticut's Supreme Court in 1992.

As a distinquished justice and citizen of Connecticut, Justice Norcott has contributed his time and energy to promote numerous professional, educational, and fraternal, and causes. For these efforts, he has received numerous honors, including the 2002 U.S. Peace Corps Franklin H. Williams Award, which recognizes Peace Corps volunteers of color who have made outstanding contributions in community service. He is also the 2003 recipient of the Greater New Haven Chapter of the NAACP's most prestigious honor, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Leadership Award. Both the University of New Haven and Albertus Magnus College have presented him with honorary doctorates.

Justice Norcott is an adviser for the New Haven Youth Rights Media Project. Until his retirement last year, he spent most fall Saturdays on the gridiron as a college football official for Division I-A and I-AA.

He and his wife, Althea Musgrove Norcott, are the parents of Daryl, Tiffany, and Candice.