It didn’t take long for John F. Wynne Jr. to figure out what he wanted to be when he grew up. Inspiration surrounded him, and he simply embraced his family’s history.

In 1984, he became a fourth-generation Wynne lawyer. The family’s presence in the New Haven, Conn., legal community reaches back 117 years. One of the oldest continuously practicing families in Connecticut, it includes his grandfather, Charles Kenneth Wynne, who served on the state Supreme Court from 1953 to 1958.