Interview with Judge Barbara A. Coppeto
IntervieweeInterview with
Barbara A. Coppeto
American, 1933 - 2017
InterviewerInterviewed by
Elaine Gordon
American
Date2005 April 18
DimensionsDuration: 1 Hour, 15 Minutes
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineGift of the Connecticut Bar Foundation
DescriptionOral history interview with Judge Barbara A. Coppeto who was interviewed by Judge Elaine Gordon on April 18, 2005 for the Connecticut Bar Foundation's History of Connecticut Women in the Legal Profession Project.
Topics Discussed:
- Early Life : Judge Coppeto was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, on September 26, 1933, and describes her childhood in a middle-class neighborhood of Waterbury.
- Family Background and Early Exposure to Law : Barbara Coppeto's father was a practicing criminal lawyer in Waterbury who often mentored new lawyers. Her mother was a stay-at-home parent. Barbara spent considerable time at her father's office, which sparked her early interest in law. During high school, she also worked for a couple of summers answering phones and checking mail for other lawyers in her father's building.
- High School: She attended an all-girls Catholic high school in Waterbury.
- Summer Jobs: Coppeto recalled a brief job at Scoville Manufacturing making zipper tops, which ended due to a strike. Another summer, her father enrolled her in a post-junior college program to learn typing and shorthand.
- College: In 1951, she chose to attend Trinity College in Washington D.C. She majored in political science and history. While in Washington, she joined the Connecticut Club and enjoyed attending arguments, debates, and hearings on Capitol Hill.
- Transition to Law School: After college, she took the Civil Service Exam and later applied to law school. She attended the University of Virginia, influenced by her father's positive recollections of his time there.
- Law School Experience : She was one of the few women in her law school class. She participated in activities like Moot Court and wrote for the Law Weekly, the law school newspaper.
- Early Career: After passing the bar exams in Virginia and Connecticut, she began her legal career in Derby, Connecticut, around 1958. Her practice evolved to include various types of cases such as trusts and estates, wills, personal injury, domestic divorce cases, and criminal work in local courts.
- Partnership: She joined Harold Yudkin's law practice in Derby. Yudkin was a mentor to her and had an active practice. He was also involved in real estate development, building over a thousand homes in the area.
- Experiences as a Woman in Law : She often found herself as the only woman at the bar in New Haven and other places, which garnered attention but generally positive reception.
Topics Discussed:
- Early Life : Judge Coppeto was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, on September 26, 1933, and describes her childhood in a middle-class neighborhood of Waterbury.
- Family Background and Early Exposure to Law : Barbara Coppeto's father was a practicing criminal lawyer in Waterbury who often mentored new lawyers. Her mother was a stay-at-home parent. Barbara spent considerable time at her father's office, which sparked her early interest in law. During high school, she also worked for a couple of summers answering phones and checking mail for other lawyers in her father's building.
- High School: She attended an all-girls Catholic high school in Waterbury.
- Summer Jobs: Coppeto recalled a brief job at Scoville Manufacturing making zipper tops, which ended due to a strike. Another summer, her father enrolled her in a post-junior college program to learn typing and shorthand.
- College: In 1951, she chose to attend Trinity College in Washington D.C. She majored in political science and history. While in Washington, she joined the Connecticut Club and enjoyed attending arguments, debates, and hearings on Capitol Hill.
- Transition to Law School: After college, she took the Civil Service Exam and later applied to law school. She attended the University of Virginia, influenced by her father's positive recollections of his time there.
- Law School Experience : She was one of the few women in her law school class. She participated in activities like Moot Court and wrote for the Law Weekly, the law school newspaper.
- Early Career: After passing the bar exams in Virginia and Connecticut, she began her legal career in Derby, Connecticut, around 1958. Her practice evolved to include various types of cases such as trusts and estates, wills, personal injury, domestic divorce cases, and criminal work in local courts.
- Partnership: She joined Harold Yudkin's law practice in Derby. Yudkin was a mentor to her and had an active practice. He was also involved in real estate development, building over a thousand homes in the area.
- Experiences as a Woman in Law : She often found herself as the only woman at the bar in New Haven and other places, which garnered attention but generally positive reception.
Object number2024.38.25a-h
NotesProject Overview: At the turn of the 20th century, other than Mary Hall, women lawyers were virtually unknown in Connecticut. By contrast, at the turn of the 21st century, law schools were enrolling roughly the same number of women as men. Since their earliest time at the bar, women have become leaders in all areas of the profession at a pace out of all proportion to their brief history and number. In 1999, the Fellows of the Connecticut Bar Foundation initiated the Oral History of Connecticut Women in the Legal Profession Project. Within the framework of this dynamic project, the Fellows have been creating a permanent video, audio, and photographic historical record of milestone achievements of women as they have become more visible and achieved prominence in the field of law. In 2019, a leadership donation of $20,000 from the law firm of Carmody Torrance Sandak & Hennessey enabled the project to significantly broaden its scope and plan for the future.
Through its first two phases, the project worked with award-winning documentarian Karyl Evans and attorney/photographer Isabel Chenoweth to produce fifty-eight oral history interviews with outstanding female attorneys and 118 portraits of women in the Connecticut judiciary.
The oral history interviews have collected the stories of women whose ingenuity, perseverance, and intelligence dismantled barriers that historically prevented women from pursuing careers in the law. Connecticut has benefited from the efforts of these “pioneers” as they enriched the legal profession by joining the ranks of their male peers and paved the way for more women to join the profession. (Source: Connecticut Bar Foundation)
Subject Terms
- Women
- Lawyers
- Women lawyers
- Oral history
- Interview films
- Interview transcripts
- Interviews
- Oral narratives
- Attorneys
- Waterbury (Conn.)
- Catholicism
- Washington (D.C.)
- Law schools
- Derby (Conn.)
- Family
- Education
- Judges
- Law firms
- Real estate
- Interviews and Oral Histories
- History of Connecticut Women in the Legal Profession Project
On View
Not on view