JamesWade,legal and political powerhouse in CT, dead at 86: 'He loved the daily grind'

Jul. 11—Wade, who also embraced state politics and his Irish heritage, worked for decades at Hartford-based Robinson & Cole and became one of the state's most sought-after criminal and civil attorneys.

"He was zealous and unrelenting, not to the point of being dogged, but tenacious like no other," the Connecticut Law Tribune editorial board wrote in a tribute to Wade. "To watch him at his work was to marvel (at) how he was thinking so many moves ahead, far beyond what some of the brightest lawyers could follow at times."

Among Wade's most publicized cases was the 1985 murder of Ellen Sherman, who was five months pregnant when her body was found in a bedroom of her East Lyme home with the air conditioner running full blast. Wade represented Edward Sherman, member of an international club for people with high IQs who claimed he kissed his wife and left on a sailing trip two days before her body was found, The Hartford Courant reported. Wade called in an engineer to testify about the cooling capacity of the bedroom air conditioner, but ultimately lost the case when the jury returned a guilty verdict in February 1992.

He also represented Frank Vandever, a stockbroker who was convicted of killing a Stonington client in 1988 after the man discovered Vandever was tapping investment funds.

Wade won or mitigated losses in many cases, fellow lawyers said, but he would not pout about losses. Keefe remembered when Wade lost a federal case and invited him for a drink at an Irish pub in New Haven called Anna Liffey's, "where lawyers would assemble and wash away their tears." When Keefe arrived, "there was Jimmy in a circle of young people listening to him talk.

"He was regaling the group with his courtroom maneuvers, how he cross-examined a witness. You would think he had won," Keefe said. "He's laughing up there and having a grand old time. That was Jimmy. I never saw him down once."

Wade also was known as a mentor to young lawyers.

"He had no reason to be kind and nice to me, but he was," Hartford attorney William Gerace said.

Around drinks at a Hartford bar or on trips to federal court, Wade gave him valuable advice, Gerace said, including his mantra "to always challenge judges, that judges don't know everything."

"I was just enthralled with watching him," he said. "He loved talking. He loved bullshitting."

Marlborough-based attorney Peter Soulsby, a former prosecutor in New Britain, called Wade "the king of the litigation bar for Hartford County."

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"I never tried anything against him, but I did resolve a lot of cases with him when I was with the State's Attorney's Office," Soulsby said. "He and (attorney) Reese Norris were two of the best cross-examiners I have ever seen in action. Juries loved him because of his down-to-earth personality."

Hartford attorney Michael Georgetti said Wade "was superb at relating to jurors. He was good with people. He could speak to them in a way that was not pompous, not degrading in any way. Jurors ended up liking him and I think that was a big part of his success."

Wade also was a political powerhouse, a longtime counselor to Democratic politicians and the party in Connecticut, which he represented before the U.S. Supreme Court. He started his political life as a selectman in his native Simsbury and became a fast friend and advisor to former Gov. William A. O'Neill and also counseled Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. He also worked on major litigation involving constitutional election and voting issues, according to his obituary.

Wade was born on Mother's Day in 1937 in Staten Island, N.Y. and grew up in a blue collar household in Simsbury, where he worked at a local farm and graduated from Simsbury High School. He went on to get degrees from Yale University and the Virginia School of Law, then served for several years as a lawyer with the U.S. Navy's Judge Advocate General's Corp, before joining Robinson & Cole and settling in his home town with wife Helene, who he met while both were attending law school. Their 60 years of marriage included two children, Sarah and Mike.

Wade, according to his obituary, also loved Ireland "and shared his love for the Irish people and country with anyone who would stand next to him." He traveled to the country more than 60 times, bringing friends for golf and visits to the pubs of Limerick.

"Finally, and overarching all that one can say about this iconic trial lawyer," the Law Tribune's board wrote, "is that he was the happiest of warriors anywhere. He loved his work, every day, and every day until just a few months before his death, he was in the office doing his work. As Craig Raabe, a lawyer he mentored going back more than three decades said of Jim's passing: 'One of his favorite lines was that no one had more fun trying cases than he did. For me that is his legacy — that if you are not having fun in life, do something else.' "

Funeral services were held Wednesday, with a mass of Christian burial at St. Mary's Church in Simsbury. Wade leaves his wife, his two children and several grandchildren.