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Nora Dannehy

American lawyer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ7050079 ↗
Source-derived summary

Nora Riordan Dannehy (born March 13, 1961) is an American attorney serving as an associate justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court since September 2023. She was previously appointed acting United States attorney for the District of Connecticut on April 4, 2008. She was the first woman to hold the office, which was established in 1789.

Education

Born in Willimantic, Connecticut, Dannehy attended Windham High School. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Wellesley College in 1983 and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1986.

Career

She joined the United States Department of Justice in 1991. Prior to her appointment, she had served as professional officer for the District of Connecticut.

Dannehy prosecuted political corruption in Connecticut and won convictions of former Connecticut Governor John G. Rowland and former state treasurer Paul J. Silvester.

On September 29, 2008, Dannehy was appointed by United States Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey to continue an investigation into the George W. Bush administration's dismissals of nine federal prosecutors in 2006. Her role was to determine if anyone should be prosecuted following the investigation by the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility of the Department of Justice, which had concluded that political pressure drove the dismissals of at least three of the federal prosecutors in 2006.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Nora Dannehy” is american lawyer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Nora, Dannehy and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1961, 2023, 2008, 1789—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1961-01-01. For this dossier, Nora, Dannehy and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american lawyer” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7050079. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1961, 2023, 2008 and 1789.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Nora Dannehy”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Nora Dannehy primary sources, Nora Dannehy archive and Nora research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Nora Dannehy”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Nora Dannehy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.