Samuel E. Slaiby Nominated for Probate Judge

At a convention of delegates held at Torrington City Hall on July 18, Samuel E. Slaiby of Torrington received the Democratic nomination for Probate Judge for District 143, which encompasses the towns of Torrington and Goshen. Mr. Slaiby is a lifetime resident of Torrington and is the senior partner in the law firm of Manasse, Slaiby & Leard, LLP, which has offices in Torrington and Kent. Mr. Slaiby's name was placed in nomination by John Kovaleski, State Representative for the 65th House District, and seconded by former Torrington City Councilman Joel D. Perlotto.

Mr. Slaiby is a 1964 graduate of Torrington High School and a 1968 graduate of Assumption College, where in his senior year he was elected President of the John F. Kennedy Historical Society and co-captain of the Assumption crew team.

After college Mr. Slaiby served in Vietnam as a combat engineer reconnaissance sergeant with the U.S. Army, 2nd Infantry Division, 65th Combat Engineer Battalion, and in 1970 was awarded the Bronze Star and Army Commendation medals for his participation in reconnaissance and security missions in preparation for and during the Cambodian campaign. He is a lifetime member of the Disabled American Veterans.

Mr. Slaiby received a Juris Doctor degree from Vermont Law School in 1976, where he was honored with an appointment as a Moot Court Advisor and receipt of the American Juris Prudence Award for Family Law.

In the summer preceding his final year of law school, Mr. Slaiby was appointed advocate for the Maine Veteran's Rights Project, where he was solely responsible for preparation of appeals for veterans with less than honorable discharges and representing them before the Army Discharge Review Board at the Pentagon. He elicited the cooperation and assistance of the offices of Maine's then U.S. Senators, Muskie and Hathaway, in developing a system of scheduling a block of cases for hearings at the Pentagon, rather than random calendaring of individual cases. The block scheduling system resulted in more efficient and effective advocacy and a then unprecedented success rate of 75% of the appealed discharges being upgraded (the general success rate nationwide at that time was less than 15%).

Mr. Slaiby was admitted to the Connecticut Bar in 1976. In 1977 he was appointed Executive Director and General Counsel to the Connecticut State Elections Commission, serving as its administrative chief and supervising investigations of election law violations and enforcement of campaign finance laws. In 1979 he left the commission to enter private practice and become a founding partner in his present firm. In 1981 he was appointed as a State Elections Commissioner and served as Vice Chairman of the commission from 1983-85.

The areas of law in which Mr. Slaiby's concentrates are bankruptcy, real estate, commercial, probate/ estate practice, and family law. He is admitted to practice before all Connecticut courts, the U.S. District Court for the State of Connecticut, and the United States Supreme Court. He is a member of the Litchfield County Bar Association and the Connecticut Bar Association. He is currently actively involved in the newly organized Litchfleld County Collaborative Divorce Group, a group of experienced family law advocates trained and committed to render legal services to people seeking to resolve divorce issues by negotiation and compromise rather than by litigation.

Among the many civic organizations in which Mr. Slaiby has been active throughout his career are St. Maron's Church, where he has been a life-long parishioner, past president of the Parish Council, and is currently a lector and member of its stewardship committee; Torrington Housing Authority, to which he was first appointed a commissioner in 1983 and of which he has been chairman since 1996; Torrington Community Housing, Inc., a nonprofit organization of which he is president, newly established for the purpose of promoting quality and affordable housing for Torrington families; First Night Torrington, which he helped found, and of which he was co-chairman in 1997-98; Torrington Democratic Town Committee, in which he has been active since 1986; and the Boy Scouts of America: he is a past chairman of Tunxis District, past board member of Long Rivers Council, and recipient of the Silver Beaver Award, the highest award a council can bestow upon a volunteer. From 1984-99 he was an Assistant Scoutmaster, citizenship counselor, and committee member of Troop 3 in Torrington. He is also a member of the North End Community Association.

Mr. Slaiby and his wife Alice-Jane Curtis Slaiby reside at 204 Benham St. in Torrington and will be celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary this year. She is a graduate of the University of Maine School of Nursing and holds a master's degree in education from St. Joseph's College; she is the school nurse for Vogel-Wetmore School in Torrington. They have four children: Thomas A. Slaiby, who is a mechanical engineer with the Torrington Company and a current member of the Torrington Board of Education; Alicia M.. Slaiby, who is a pediatrics nurse at Yale-New Haven Hospital; Aaron M. Slaiby, who is a senior at UConn-Storrs; and Andrew J. Slaiby, who this fall will be entering his freshman year at UConn-Torrington.