The Connecticut legal community lost a giant this week with the passing of Connecticut Supreme Court Chief Justice Ellen Ash Peters at 94, surrounded by her family. Justice Peters left us with a legacy that was unparalleled. There were a series of firsts: first female faculty member at Yale Law School (1956) first tenured female law professor at Yale School of Law (1964), first female Associate Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court (1978), first female Chief Justice (1984). She won countless awards and honorary degrees, but her own words best capture what these milestones meant to her.

At a 1994 ceremony marking Justice Peters’ 10th anniversary as Chief Justice, many of those in the courtroom heard her reflect on that day in May 1978, when she was first sworn in as an associate justice: ”Governor Grasso took quite a chance in appointing a maverick like me: no judicial experience, no practice experience, an academic, a woman, a naturalized citizen, and, even more surprising, a person whom she had never laid eyes on,” Peters said. “She gave me a rare opportunity to perform public service just as state courts were again becoming serious contributors — players — in the service of justice.