A. Paul Spinella
Before starting his own office, A. Paul Spinella practiced law for over ten years with one of Hartford County's most prominent law firms where he was a partner in charge of litigation. During that time he represented many of Connecticut's largest insurance companies before developing his present plaintiffs-based practice.
A particular area of Attorney Spinella's practice is the area of criminal trial and appellate practice. He is the author of Connecticut Criminal Procedure, a 1,000-page textbook that examines the history, development, and existing state of the law of
Connecticut criminal procedure. First published in 1985, this text was the result of four years of labor—it has recently been supplemented and is presently undergoing additional revisions.
The commitment and devotion demonstrated by his dedication to this project are directed to his clients; he represents citizens accused of crimes in all of Connecticut's trial courts, as well as before the State's appellate courts, where he represents citizens convicted of crimes who are seeking post-conviction remedies in either the trial or the appellate courts.
In addition to his scholarly pursuits, Attorney Spinella is a litigator who has had enormous experience in the trenches—he has tried major cases to verdict in every type of prosecution in all of Connecticut's courts.
As a result of his zealous defense of the citizen accused, Attorney Spinella has developed a substantial practice prosecuting claims on behalf of citizens who have had their rights violated by police and prosecutors. He has pursued widely publicized police misconduct and civil rights claims against virtually every major municipality in Connecticut.
Attorney Spinella has lectured widely in the areas of plaintiff's rights, police misconduct and civil rights, and criminal defense issues. In addition, he has participated in numerous professional organizations devoted to these and related areas. For example, he is a longtime member of the Connecticut Bar Association, where he served as a member of the House of Delegates. He is presently a member of the Executive Committee of the Civil Rights Section and has previously served as Chairman; during his tenure as Chairman he organized and chaired a highly regarded seminar that greatly influenced the development of State Constitutional Jurisprudence. He has also served previously and presently on a number of other State Bar Committees such as the Executive Committee of the Criminal Justice Section and the Executive Committee of the Professional Responsibility Section. He is also a member of the Hartford Bar Association (where he presently serves on the Scholarship Fund) as well as a number of other state and national organizations devoted to civil and criminal trial practice such as the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association (former chair of Lawyer's Assistance Task Force) and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (Lifetime member). He is also active in the Connecticut and American Trial Lawyers Association.
Throughout his career, Attorney Spinella has experience in a wide range of plaintiff's cases and in cases involving the criminally accused. (Samples of these cases are described in the Firm Cases section of this web site.) He feels strongly that there are two types of courtroom advocates—litigators and trial lawyers. A trial lawyer particularly a civil rights trial lawyer, cares about results and will go to the mat to vindicate his client's rights because he believes in what he does and sees himself as a member of a profession with a great history; for a civil rights lawyer, the “business of law” is a respectable financial enterprise, the pursuit of which is, however, conducted in order to advance the goals of a noble profession. Attorney Spinella is a trial lawyer.
He is a graduate of Trinity College and the University of Connecticut Law School where he served as an associate editor of the Law Review and as a member of the National Moot Court Team. Following law school he served an appointment as a law clerk to a Federal District Court judge.