Ellen Ash Peters

Career Peters clerked for Chief Judge Charles Edward Clark of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for one year, and was a research associate at the University of California at Berkeley Law School (Boalt Hall) for another year.

Peters became assistant professor at Yale Law School in 1956 and full professor in 1964 before being named Southmayd Professor of Law, a post she held from 1975 to 1978, when Governor Ella Tambussi Grasso appointed Peters to the Connecticut Supreme Court. Peters was the first female state supreme court justice appointed by a female governor.

After Peters was appointed to the bench, she remained an adjunct professor until being appointed chief justice in 1984 by Governor William A. O'Neill. Peters remained chief justice until 1996, when she took senior status, leaving the court in 2000 when she reached mandatory retirement age.

Peters was a visiting professor of law at the University of Connecticut Law School. She was joined in the majority opinion by Justices Robert Berdon, Flemming L. Norcott, Jr., and Joette Katz. Justice David Borden authored the dissent, with Justices Robert Callahan and Richard Palmer concurring with the dissent.

Memberships, awards and honors Peters was an alumni fellow of the Yale Corporation and a former member of the board of managers of Swarthmore College. and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

March 21, 2015, was declared "Ellen Ash Peters Day" in Connecticut by Governor Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut.

Personal life and death Peters's first marriage was to Robert Peters, a psychiatrist. They had three children and subsequently divorced.

Blumberg died in 2021. Peters died in West Hartford, Connecticut on April 17, 2024, at the age of 94.