Coming from nothing, struggling to rise firm, is a heritage which knows justice on sight, and universal to anyone who so struggled, Connolly spoke in reflection.
He was speaking from within what became a San Francisco power center, the United Irish Cultural Center, to supporters who would have him elected San Francisco Superior Court judge.
It was peopled with living matriarchs and patriarchs, bearing the hard look of having had nothing, yet having forged the next generation to a place within the San Francisco firmament.
Connolly spoke of his native Irish grandmother, who sewed mattresses in Boston for 25 years to support six children, and lifted his arms toward his own father, and daughter who claimed the dance floor to herself, secure in life passed on to her.
"In the process of just two generations, I look around the room and see we now have judges, lawyers, and politicians," he said.
"We worked hard to get here, and it's a culture that extends beyond the Irish community.  It's the finely wound fabric of all ethniticies who had to work hard to get here," Connolly continued.
That sense of up-from-the-bottom justice carried through to the 40-year-old Boston native's legal career, he said.
Connolly grew up in Berkeley, graduating from Berkeley High School in 1981.
He attend Boston University, from which he graduated cum laude in 1986. After attending Oxford University on a Modern British Studies scholarship, Connolly returned to the Bay Area to attend the University of San Francisco School of Law, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award for Legal Research and Writing, and worked as a judicial extern for the San Francisco Superior Court. While in law school, Connolly prosecuted cases in the Alameda District Attorney's office.
He worked for the Public Defender's Office in Alameda County from 1990 to 1991, and served as a Deputy Public Defender in San Francisco from 1991 to 1997.
Following that, he served as the General Counsel to the San Francisco Police Officers' Association from 1997 to 1999. From 1999 until the present, Connolly has served as a Deputy City Attorney for the City and County of San Francisco, representing the City and County of San Francisco in state and federal courts.
He serves on the Board of Directors for the non-profit San Francisco Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), an organization devoted to protecting the rights of neglected and abused children in the foster care system. Connolly also serves on the Board of Directors for the Municipal Attorneys Association.
He also works with the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, which is committed to providing housing and other resources to low-income residents of the Tenderloin, and the American Ireland Fund.
Connolly has served as an instructor for C.E.B. (Continuing Education of the Bar) instructing attorneys on special areas of law and courtroom evidence. He frequently appears as a guest lecturer at the Hastings School of Law and the University of San Francisco School of Law.

CHRIS CUNNIE, president of the San Francisco Police Officers' Association, recalled the POA board of directors unanimously endorsed Connolly on learning of his campaign.
CONNOLLY came from his work with the greatest breadth of experience, Sheriff Michael Hennessey said.
Gail Dekreon, competing candidate, is not of the same calibre in work experience, Supervisor Matt Gonzalez insisted.