Jay B. Levin is a member of the New London firm of Suisman Shapiro Attorneys-At-Law, where he serves as Of Counsel to the firm. Suisman Shapiro is the largest law firm in Eastern Connecticut.
Born in Bridgeport and growing up in West Hartford, Jay first became active in politics as a freshman at Connecticut College in New London. He was part of a successful primary election to join the New London Democratic Town Committee and then managed campaigns for candidates for City Council and Board of Education, State Representative and State Senator. He learned the hard way about the sixty plus towns in Eastern Connecticut’s Second Congressional District serving in the field for a congressional campaign during the 1972 Nixon landslide. But the lessons learned there enabled him to chair Congressman Chris Dodd’s first re-election campaign in 1976.
During that same time and while attending the University of Connecticut School of Law, he served as a member and then chair of the Zoning Board of Appeals. The City Council selected him to be Chair of the Charter Revision Commission that created New London’s Planning and Zoning, Water and Water Pollution Control Authority and Ethics Commission. He went on to be elected to the City Council, served as Mayor and then as the State Representative for the 40th District representing parts of New London and Groton. In 1990, he ran as a candidate for Connecticut’s Attorney General, losing narrowly to now United States Senator Richard Blumenthal.
Levin’s first work in the law was as legal counsel to Congressman Dodd. He was subsequently appointed the first full-time Deputy Assistant State’s Attorney in New London County. He joined the law firm of Dupont and Tobin in 1980 in the general practice of law focusing on civil and criminal litigation. He began work as a lobbyist in 1991 and has continued to do so through his present partnership in Levin, Paolino and Christ.
In his work for the City of New London, he worked with devoted citizens to restart the New London Development Corporation, which significantly rebuilt and reconfigured the downtown waterfront and began the redevelopment of the Ft. Trumbull area of the City, which now contains a state park and the major engineering and design operations of General Dynamics Electric Boat. In the General Assembly he Chaired the bipartisan Program Review and Investigations Committee, and served as a member of the Judiciary, Finance and Transportation Committees. He was appointed by Governor William O’Neill to the Law Revision Commission as member and served as its Chair for ten years.
He is a Founding Fellow of the Connecticut Law Foundation and served as the first Chair of the Campaign For Justice, the trial bar’s major commitment to the funding of legal services for those unable to otherwise retain counsel. Jay served as a member of the Board of Trustees of Connecticut College and was legal counsel to its Alumni Association. He was government relations counsel to the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut and Corporator for the Lawrence and Memorial Hospital. He is a member of the Connecticut and New London County Bar Associations.
