Joe Mirsky, One Of A Kind

Almost everyone has a Joe Mirsky story. Tough, gruff, sweet and sour, that was Mirsky who held court in Superior Court even though he wasn’t wearing a robe.

“I didn’t take the fifth,” he’d say, “I drank it.” Mirsk was a pretty good tipper in more ways than one. As a young, broke scribe circa 1980, one day I rode the elevator with Mirsk in the Main Street courthouse. I hadn’t a penny in my pocket. “Mirsk, can I borrow $10?”

“Sure,” he said, digging into his pocket, pulling out a wad of cash. He handed me a $100 bill.

“Mirsk, just $10 will do. Thanks.”

“Take the money you guinea bastard or I’ll knock you on your ass.”

I took the money because there was a distinct possibility he would knock me on my ass. But that was Mirsk. All I wanted was a box of chicken McNuggets at McDonalds, he gave me enough to feed an army. From Dan Tepfer, CT Post:

Attorney Joseph Mirsky, who for decades epitomized Bridgeport’s criminal defense practice with his brash, always colorful personality, has died.

The Spear Funeral Home, in Fairfield, confirmed Friday they had handled the 85-year-old Mirsky’s cremation. No services were scheduled.

For more than 50 years Mirsky was a familiar figure in the area’s courthouses, hobbling around on his bow legs, running shoes without socks, a bulging yellow legal pad under his left arm. More often than not his greeting would be in the form of the question, “Hey, how’s your sex life,” or an off-color joke. He appeared to be a combination of Popeye the Sailor and that relentless mechanical bunny featured in a battery maker’s TV ads. And it appeared there was just no stopping him.

“I’m not going to stop, I’m just going to keep on going,” he confirmed once in his gravelly voice. “If I’m to die, it’s going to be in my chair in my office.”

But that was not to be.

A heart attack and other recent ailments finally brought Mirsky to a standstill and forced him to give up his law practice which at one time controlled 80 percent of the area’s criminal court docket.

“He truly was a legend in his own time,” said Milford lawyer John Walkley. “A unique individual, I don’t think there is anyone who practices law in this state who didn’t know Joe and had a story to tell about him.”

In a joint statement, local lawyers, John R. Gulash, Eugene Riccio and Christian Young agreed that Mirsky “clearly marched to a different drummer.”

“Every system needs a Joe Mirsky, he was an integral part of the Bridgeport legal community, and, no one is going to fill his sockless sneakers. He entertained us, and always had a joke for every judicial pretrial. We all to a certain extent learned from Joe Mirsky, through the gravely voice, the somewhat gruff arguably crass exterior, he is someone who would literally give you the shirt off his back, would have time for everybody, including the older contemporaries as well as the new lawyers, and all his past and current clients.”

Several local lawyers have suggested to honor Mirsky they would all go about a day wearing running shoes but no socks and share found memories of him.

A native of Bridgeport’s North End, Mirsky attended public schools and graduated from Central High School in 1945. He enrolled in the expanding University of Bridgeport and graduated with the first large class in 1949. He went to Boston University School of Law and graduated in 1952.

Following graduation from law school and being admitted to the bar, Mirsky enlisted in the U.S. Army where he was assigned to serve in the Army Judge Advocate General Corps. He was enrolled at the judge advocate general school at the University of Virginia in 1952 and completed a year of training before being assigned to the First Army headquarters. He served as a judge advocate for 16 months in Korea and two months in Japan, attaining the rank of first lieutenant. After receiving an honorable discharge in 1955, he returned to Bridgeport and opened his practice.

Over the years Mirsky’s office on Main Street swelled to five lawyers and six secretaries. Among the alumni of Mirsky’s office was Aaron Ment who would go on to become the state’s chief administrative judge.

Some of Mirsky’s cases would go on to become the stuff of legends, others ended him up before the state Grievance Committee.

In 1996 he represented a self-proclaimed witch in Monroe accused of having ritualistic sex with a 15-year-old Trumbull boy. During an impromptu press conference on the steps of the Main Street courthouse during that trial he challenged a large group of news reporters, many of them women, “Come on, what woman wouldn’t want to have sex with a 15-year-old?”

He was later chastised by the grievance committee after a female lawyer in a divorce case complained that Mirsky, the opposing counsel, was making masturbation motions while she was questioning a witness on the stand.

And then there was that time Mirsky sat down on a courtroom bench next to a mob boss and decided to tell the man an Italian joke. “Find out who that was,” the boss said to his large bodyguard after Mirsky had left.

Although Mirsky would never apologize for his actions he later admitting to having an alcohol problem which he later claimed to have beaten.