Long before Judge Patrick Carroll was appointed to the bench nearly two decades ago, he was answering his own phones as a solo practitioner in Fairfield.

That experience of being a one-man general practice law office and part-time proscutor from 1979 to 1996 helped Carroll develop multi-tasking skills that would prove useful later as a court administrator. Out of necessity, he pursued his interests in computers and technology as "a way to ease the administrative burden of working solo."