Catherine Roraback

The practice was founded in 1873 by her grandfather, Alberto Roraback.

Albert Roraback graduated from Yale Divinity School in 1905 and became a pastor at the Church of Evangel in 1910.

Reverend Roraback was initially from Canaan, Connecticut, where his father, Alberto T. Roraback, was the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Among Catherine's well-known relatives was her great-uncle, political boss J. Henry Roraback, who controlled the Connecticut Republican Party from 1912 to 1937, serving as the party's chairman.

Her parents were married in Brooklyn on June 24, 1914.

Her father, Albert Roraback was a Congregational Minister of the Church of the Evangel in Brooklyn.

Catherine Gertrude Roraback (September 17, 1920 – October 17, 2007) was a civil rights attorney in Connecticut, best known for representing Estelle Griswold and Dr. C. Lee Buxton in the famous 1965 Supreme Court case, Griswold v. Connecticut, which legalized the use of birth control in Connecticut and created the precedent of the right to privacy.

Roraback, commonly known as "Katie", was born in Brooklyn, New York to Reverend Albert Edward Roraback and Gertrude Remsen Ditmars on September 17, 1920.

The Republican Party successfully unified and controlled most affairs throughout the state in the 1920s under Roraback's leadership.

At the time, he was considered the most influential man in Connecticut.

He was a strong influence in the creation of Connecticut's Candlewood Lake, which is used today to generate electricity.

Ironically, amidst the struggle for suffrage at the beginning of the 20th century, J. Henry Roraback opposed the bill that would grant women's suffrage in the United States.

This stance contrasted significantly with Catherine's deep involvement in women's rights and her promotion of feminism that came to be her legacy.

Catherine Roraback was also a cousin Andrew Roraback, a state politician and judge from Connecticut.

Her family ties to political leaders in Connecticut are extensive and were a powerful influence on her career, as was the influence of her parents, both of whom were social activists.

Roraback attended Mount Holyoke College, from which she graduated in 1941, and Yale Law School, in where she graduated in 1948.

She was the only woman in her graduating class at Yale.

Throughout her early career, Catherine Roraback participated in many controversial cases, such as a Smith Act trial in Connecticut in the 1950s, in which she defended members of the Communist party such as Ladislaus "Laddie" Michalowski, a Progressive organizer whom Roraback represented in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

In the late 1950s, the 1879 law banning contraceptives in Connecticut became a prominent issue for many women.

Planned Parenthood executive director Estelle Griswold realized that the law was out of date and posed medical problems.

She and Yale University chief of obstetrics and gynecology, Dr. Lee Buxton, along with Yale Law School professor Fowler Harper, took the issue to the Supreme Court, with Roraback leading the litigation.

Roraback argued that the banning of contraceptives was a medical concern for women and a problem for married couples, and should be overturned.

However, the Supreme Court ruled that because the law had never been enforced, it was not a serious issue and voted 5–4 to keep the law in place.

As a result, Griswold and Buxton decided to test whether or not the law would be enforced, and opened a birth control clinic in New Haven.

The clinic was shut down almost immediately and Griswold and Buxton were arrested and found guilty of violating the law by providing birth control.

The case was taken to court, with Catherine Roraback representing Griswold and Buxton.

She took a different approach to this case and argued that the law violated the right to privacy for married couples.

During the trial, Roraback continued to argue the right to privacy for married couples.

However, after a brief time, it was understood that the Connecticut courts were not going to change their stance on birth control and Roraback would lose the case.

The courts valued the moral issues of the law too greatly to effect a change.

While defending Griswold and Buxton in what was then known to be the Buxton case in the Connecticut Superior Court, Roraback had already begun to file the appeals so that the case would be taken to the United States Supreme Court.

Much to Roraback's relief, the jury ruled against Griswold and Buxton, considering the law necessary for the "preservation of mankind", a ruling that Roraback found ridiculous.

She brought the case to the Supreme Court, where it came to be known as ''Griswold v. Connecticut

In 1954, Roraback represented a defendant in Connecticut who was charged with violating the Smith Act in a case centered around a charge that the defendant had advocated the overthrow of the government of the United States because the defendant had read the writings of Karl Marx.

Catherine Roraback's participation in the Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut began with the case's predecessor, Poe v. Ullman.

In 1955, Roraback took over her family's solo practice in Canaan, Connecticut.

She inherited the practice from her uncle, J. Clinton Roraback, who was a trial lawyer.

She is also known for such cases as the New Haven Black Panther trials of 1971, in which she defended Black Panther member Ericka Huggins after she was accused of murder.

Roraback dealt with issues such as women's rights and racial discrimination, and lived her life to defend the rights of the "dissenters and the dispossessed".

She continued the solo practice in Canaan until her death in 2007.