Joel Freedman was born on August 8, 1948, in Hartford, Connecticut, United States, the son of Irving Freedman and Estelle G. (Simon) Freedman. Hartford had long been known as a leading center of American insurance, and the city's insurance companies and legal community later formed the setting of much of his professional life.
Freedman earned a Bachelor's degree from the University of Connecticut in 1970, and a Juris Doctor from the university's School of Law in 1973. The University of Connecticut was a state public university whose main campus was in Storrs, while its law school was located in Hartford.
The law school traces its origins to 1921, when it was founded as the private Hartford College of Law by George William Lillard and Caroline Eiermann Lillard. In 1948 the college passed to the University of Connecticut, which made it the University of Connecticut School of Law. From 1964 to 1984 the school occupied a new campus at 1800 Asylum Avenue in West Hartford, where Freedman studied during his years there.
Freedman was admitted to the Connecticut bar in 1973, and in the same year he was admitted to practice before the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. His first professional position was as an associate at Feingold & Freedman in Hartford, where he worked from 1973 to 1974.
From 1974 to 1976 he served as a counsel member of the Connecticut Superior Court. The Superior Court is the trial court of general jurisdiction in Connecticut, hearing a broad range of civil and criminal cases. Between 1975 and 1978 he also served as associate editor of a journal connected with the Connecticut Bar Association.
From 1976 to 1980 Freedman was general counsel of the Insurance Association of Connecticut, a state trade association representing insurance companies. This position linked his legal work to the insurance industry that was central to Hartford's economy.
From 1980 to 1984 he was an assistant vice president at Connecticut General CIGNA. Connecticut General Life Insurance Company was created in 1865 and became one of the major life and health insurers based in Hartford. In 1982 its corporate parent merged with the Insurance Company of North America to form CIGNA, the name under which the company's Connecticut operations were later known.
Since 1984 Freedman has been federal affairs counsel with the Hartford Insurance Group in Washington, D.C. The Hartford company was founded in 1810 as the Hartford Fire Insurance Company. In 1970 it was acquired by ITT Corporation and became part of the ITT-Hartford Group, a name it kept until 1997, when it became the Hartford Financial Services Group. Freedman's Washington role placed him at the point where insurance companies engaged with federal legislation and regulation.
Freedman's documented religious affiliation is Judaism, one of the oldest monotheistic religious traditions. Judaism is rooted in the covenant between God and the people of Israel and is based on the Torah, the written scriptures, together with the oral teachings developed in rabbinic literature. Its ethical framework emphasizes justice, learning, charity, and the observance of commandments, which have shaped Jewish communal life in congregations across the world.
In the United States, Jewish communities during the twentieth century developed a range of religious movements, including Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism, each with a distinct approach to ritual practice and interpretation of tradition. Jewish participation in American professional and civic life expanded considerably in the decades after the Second World War, and many Jewish Americans entered the legal and business professions during that period.
Freedman was a Democrat. The Democratic Party is one of the two major American political parties, with origins in the followers of Andrew Jackson in the 1820s and 1830s. Its tradition has emphasized broad economic opportunity, civil rights, and an active role for federal government in regulating commerce and supporting social welfare.
During the 1970s and 1980s, when Freedman began and developed his legal and insurance-industry career, the party contained liberal, moderate, and conservative currents. Debates within the party concerned the balance between government regulation and market competition, a question that bore directly on the insurance and financial industries in which Freedman later worked.
Freedman was a member of the American Bar Association, the national professional association of lawyers in the United States, founded in 1878 to promote legal education, professional standards, and the improvement of the law. He was also a member of the Connecticut Bar Association, the principal voluntary bar association of the state, which serves its lawyers through continuing legal education, professional guidance, and public legal advocacy.
Freedman married Susan Cohen Freedman on December 20, 1970. The couple had one child, Amy Elizabeth.
