2008 Judge of the Year Also Teaches at Naugatuck Valley Community College

Waterbury, Conn. – Robert J. Devlin, Jr., an adjunct instructor of law at Naugatuck Valley Community College and a Bridgeport Superior Court judge, was recently named 2008 Judge of the Year by the Greater Bridgeport Bar Association’s criminal law section.

Devlin, who began teaching law in the College’s hospitality management department in 2003, also teaches litigation in the business division’s legal assistant program. He graduated from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1975 and entered into private practice before becoming a public defender. He began his public law career in New Haven before his appointment as an assistant state’s attorney in New Haven under the late Arnold Markle.

Devlin served as a federal prosecutor in 1987 in the Connecticut U.S. Attorney’s Office. While working with the Organized Crime Task Force, he prosecuted several cases involving the infamous Patriarca crime family in 1991. He was appointed to the Superior Court in 1993 by then-Governor Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., and has served the courts in Hartford, New London, Norwich, Stamford and New Haven before returning to his current assignment in Bridgeport in January of this year.

“I had the pleasure of hiring Judge Devlin when he came to NVCC,” said Karen Rotella, associate professor and coordinator of the hospitality management program. “He is greatly admired by his students at the College.”

“Judge Devlin is a real asset to the College,” said Mitchell Holmes, academic director of the business division. “He is soft spoken but always very knowledgeable and sought after by both students and faculty. He is an avid reader and regularly comments on books and articles relating to education.”