Judge Barbara Brazzel-Massaro: Professional Background and Legal Expertise

Hon. Barbara Brazzell-Massaro is the assistant administrative judge for the Danbury Judicial District Superior Court in Connecticut. She was appointed to the bench by former Governor Mary Jodi Rell in 2008.

Over the course of her judicial tenure, Brazzell-Massaro has held assignments in the Danbury, Stamford, and Waterbury Judicial Districts as well as presided over the Complex Litigation Docket in Stamford.

Prior to her appointment, she had worked as an associate city attorney for the City of Bridgeport since 1983. As such, Brazzell-Massaro served as a litigator in the operations of a city-owned airport, park, and zoo, as well as addressed antitrust law, civil rights actions, statutory interpretation, inverse condemnation, negligence actions, and administrative appeals for several land use boards. In addition, she assisted in legal matters involving the Barnum Museum, the city ambulance services, the Beardsley Zoo, Bridgeport parks, and the Harbor Yard Arena. Brazzell-Massaro was also credited with trying over two dozen cases and obtaining many dismissals or summary judgments in favor of the City and its employees as well as authoring briefs and arguing several cases to the Supreme Court of Connecticut and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Brazell-Massaro also served as an attorney trial referee for the Connecticut Superior Court (1985 to 2008) and spent three years as the City Attorney for the City of Bridgeport (1989 to 1992).

She received a B.A. from Montclair State University in 1974. Brazell-Massaro went on to complete a J.D. at Western New England University School of Law in 1981. She was admitted to practice in New Jersey (1981) and Connecticut (1982).

After graduating from law school, Brazell-Massaro began her legal career as a clerk in the county courts in New Jersey. Then, after her yearlong clerkship, she relocated to Connecticut, where she served as a temporary assistant clerk in the Milford Judicial District.

Brazell-Massaro has sat as a member of the Federal Civil Justice Reform Act Committee, the Land Use Committee (chairperson), and the Bridgeport Bar Association Board of Directors.

She spent time as a lecturer for the Practicing Law Institute in New York as well as for the Connecticut Association of Municipal Attorneys. Brazell-Massaro is also certified for police instruction and has served on her hometown Police Commission and as a member of the State Police Commissioners Association.

She was a volunteer for Swim Across the Sound, a co-chair to the Sacred Heart University Theater Renovation Committee, and was involved with an effort to open a food pantry in the City of Bridgeport.

Brazzell-Massaro was born in Washington, D.C., the third of four children. She and her husband, Carl, have one daughter.

She is registered as a Republican.