Charlotte Anne Perretta
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Charlotte Anne Perretta (1942 – April 10, 2015) was the first woman to sit on the Massachusetts Appeals Court.[1]
Perretta was born in 1942[2] and grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, to Lois (née Gubtil) and Armando Perretta, a homemaker and restaurateur.[1] She had two brothers, Mike and James.[1][2]
Perretta attended Mount St. Joseph Academy before receiving a bachelor's degree from the College of St. Elizabeth in 1964 and a law degree from Suffolk University Law School in 1967.[1][3][4]
Legal career
Early in her career, Perretta represented indigent clients with the Massachusetts Defenders Committee on post-conviction matters.[1][2][5] She then joined the firm of Crane, Inker & Oteri where she argued cases before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the Appeals Court, which had recently been created.[5][1][2] She co-founded her own firm in the mid-1980s, Keating, Perretta & Pierce, before practicing with Ronald Wysocki.[1][2][5] She worked in both state and federal courts and as an assistant in the Middlesex County District Attorney's office.[4]
In 1978, then-Governor Michael S. Dukakis appointed her to the Appeals Court, the first woman to hold that post.[3][1][2][4][5] She took the oath of office on December 21, 1978, becoming the second youngest appeals court justice ever.[5]
Her portrait hangs in the main courtroom, facing the justice sitting on the bench.[1] When she retired on October 2, 2009, she was the senior associate justice on the court and had authored over 1,700 opinions.[1][2][5][3]