John M. Gesmonde

John M. Gesmonde practices in the areas of labor, education, and employment law as well as municipal law and select land use issues. He has been named one of the Top 100 Trial Lawyers by the National Trial Lawyers Association from 2014 through 2020 and from 2007 through 2019, New England Magazine named him a Super Lawyer.

Mr. Gesmonde has experience representing individual employees, including superintendents of schools, more than 100 school administrator associations, and other public sector unions, including police, fire, secretarial, paraprofessional, nurse, custodial, and town hall employee units in collective bargaining, grievance arbitration, termination matters, and unfair labor practice complaints. He has extensive experience appearing and arguing before local boards and commissions, in the Connecticut Superior Courts, and in both the Appellate and Supreme Courts on labor and education issues as well as land use issues, including eminent domain, affordable housing, zoning, and inland wetlands matters. Since his appointment in 1983, Mr. Gesmonde has served on the State Department of Education Arbitration Panel as a labor sector advocate arbitrator.

Mr. Gesmonde received his B.A. degree from Columbia in 1967. In 1973, he received his J.D. degree from the University of Connecticut, School of Law where he served as Associate Editor of the Law Review and received the American Jurisprudence Award for excellence in contracts. Mr. Gesmonde was admitted to the Connecticut bar in 1973 and is admitted to the bars of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut (1975), the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit (1975), and the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York (1977).

He is a frequent guest lecturer for teacher, administrator, superintendent, and assistant superintendent organizations and is a contributor to the Connecticut Association of School Administrators (CASA) newsletter. Mr. Gesmonde is a member of the New Haven County and Connecticut Bar Associations, the Connecticut Employment Lawyers’ Association, the National Employment Lawyers’ Association, and the American Arbitration Association.

Attorney Gesmonde served as Town Attorney for North Branford from 1985 to 2007 and from 2009 to 2015.