William R. Breetz, President

Bill Breetz has been the President and Executive Director of CULI since 1997. This is Bill's second tour at the Law School; he was first here from 1970 to 1972, when he taught Civil Procedure and founded the Civil Legal Clinic. For many years he has represented a variety of profit and non-profit groups throughout Connecticut involved in housing and a broad range of other matters with public impact.

Bill is a Connecticut Commissioner to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, a member of the Joint Editorial Board on Real Property Acts of the Uniform Laws Conference, and a member of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers. He is also of counsel to Levy & Droney, P.C., in Farmington, Connecticut.

Bill also served as a Reporter of the Uniform Laws Conference for the Uniform Condominium Act and the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (UCIOA). He also chaired the study groups of the Law Revision Commission, which resulted in Connecticut's 1983 adoption of UCIOA, and the 1995 Amendments to UCIOA. In 2003 and 2004 Bill chaired the drafting committee for the Uniform Environmental Covenants Act.

He has been a member of the Connecticut Law Revision Commission since 1977 and chaired that Commission from 1980 to 1984. He has chaired several study groups of the Law Revision Commission considering other real estate laws.

He was educated at Dartmouth College (B.A. 1963) and the University of Virginia Law School (L.L.B. 1968). He and his family live in Hartford.

Barbara S. McGrath, Assistant Director

Barbara has served as the Assistant Director of CULI since February of 1998. She previously served as founder and Executive Director of a statewide public-private partnership, the Community Economic Development Fund. From 1991-1993, Barbara was the Deputy Banking Commissioner for the State of Connecticut, during a period of significant turbulence and change in the Connecticut banking landscape. She started her law career in private practice with Day, Berry & Howard in Hartford. Barbara serves on the Boards of the Connecticut Children's Medical Center, the Children's Fund of Connecticut and its affiliate, the Child Health and Development Institute, Commercial Loan Partners (a nonprofit 504 lender), Willimantic Whitewater Partnership, as the Attorney General's appointee on the Fleet Community Oversight Committee (regarding the $14.6 billion commitment in connection with Fleet's merger with BankBoston) and she served until recently as an elected member of the Board of Selectmen in Windham, Connecticut, where she lives with her husband and their three children.

She graduated from Yale College (B.A. 1977) and the University of Connecticut School of Law (J.D. 1983).

David Blackwell, Staff Attorney

Attorney David Blackwell joined the staff at CULI in late 2002 as CULI's third attorney. David is a 1998 graduate of the University of Connecticut School of Law and was a student in CULI's inaugural class. Formerly, he was an attorney for Travelers Property Casualty Corp. and a member of the Connecticut General Assembly. As a state legislator, David's committee work included service, in his first term, on the General Assembly's Housing Committee and, in his second term, as the Ranking House Member on the General Assembly's Planning & Development Committee.

In addition to his law degree, David received a B.A. from Central Connecticut State University in 1987, and a Master's in Public Administration from the University of Hartford in 1992, where he served as a Woodruff Fellow in Public Administration.

Immediately after college, David helped get Christopher Shays elected to Congress, and later served on Congressman Shays' Washington staff. Subsequently, he was a teacher in the Republic of Palau for the Jesuit Volunteers International (JVI); a program that sends recent college graduates to work in developing countries. Prior to receiving his Master's degree, David worked as a consultant to a neighborhood revitalization program in Rochester, NY.

David has also worked in Miami for a non-profit organization and raised more than $5 million for programs to help the homeless. While in Miami, he founded the Miami Supportive Housing Corporation, a non-profit organization designed to provide housing for people with special needs.

David also practices law with the firm of Blackwell, Davis & Spadaccini, LLC, in Hartford.