Paul H. Cullinan of Easton, a Bridgeport lawyer and former president of the Board of Education here who currently is deputy coroner for Fairfield County, has been named to a career post with the U.S. Department of the Interior, in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Cullinan will begin his duties Monday in the Solicitors' division of the Interior department and has been assigned to the legal staff of the department's Fish and Wildlife division.

Moving to Washington

He and his wife, the former Janet G. Curran, have sold their house at 38 Marsh Road, Easton, and are moving to Washington.

Mr. Cullinan said he will submit his resignation as deputy coroner later this week to Coronor Isador L. Kotler.

Vice chairman of the Easton Democratic Town committee the past three years, Mr. Cullinan resigned from that position this week.

In his law practice, he has been associated with Daniel V. McPadden, with offices at 955 Main Street. Mr. McPadden will carry on such legal work of Mr. Cullinan's as may be pending, until such time as Mr. Cullinan closes out his practice here.

Yale Graduate

Born in Bridgeport in 1912, Mr. Cullinan attended Maplewood school and Central high school. He graduated from Yale University in 1935 and from the Hartford College of Law, now the Law School of the University of Connecticut in 1941.

He was appointed a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in June, 1941, serving with the F.B.I. until the fall of 1945, when he entered the practice of law with his father, John J. Cullinan, who died in 1952.

Subsequently, Mr. Cullinan formed a law partnership with Stephen J. O'Brien under the firm name of O'Brien and Cullinan, and in 1959 he became associated with Mr. McPadden, as Cullinan and McPadden.

A former clerk of the old City Court, which now has been absorbed into the Circuit court system, Mr. Cullinan was elected to a three-year term on the Bridgeport Board of Education in 1948 and was board president from 1950-51.

Mr. Cullinan has been serving as secretary to the Committee on Admissions to the Bar for Fairfield County since 1948, and at one time was associate counsel for the Fairfield County Bar Grievance Committee. He is a member of the State Bar Examining Committee, and is a former member of the Executive Board of the Bridgeport Bar Association.

Long active in civic affairs, he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Community Chest and Council and a member of its Budget Committee, and has been assistant treasurer of the Family Service Society of Bridgeport.