Vanessa Lynne Bryant

Vanessa Lynne Bryant (born January 27, 1954) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. Early life Bryant was born in Queens, New York, and graduated from Howard University with her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1975 and later from University of Connecticut School of Law with a Juris Doctor in 1978. Legal career From 1975 to 1976 she practiced law for the municipal government of Stamford, Connecticut. Bryant was in private practice at Day, Berry and Howard (presently Day Pitney) in Hartford, Connecticut, from 1978 to 1981. During the period from 1981 to 1989 she was a counsel to Aetna Life & Casualty Company and to Shawmut Bank from 1989 to 1990. She was Vice President and General Counsel to the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority from 1990 to 1992, and in 1991 joined the Connecticut Board of Pardons, which she stayed on until 1998. She was counsel to, and later a partner of, the New York-based law firm of Hawkins, Delafield and Wood from 1992 to 1998 and the chapter 13 bankruptcy trustee for the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Connecticut, Bridgeport division from 1996 until she was appointed a Connecticut Superior Court Judge on September 1, 1998. State judicial service