Gov. Maura Healey’s decide for the state’s highest court docket will get her first job as a choose, after the Governor’s Council unanimously accepted her appointment to the Supreme Judicial Court.
State Solicitor Elizabeth “Bessie” Dewar, 43, obtained the help of the eight-member council after a December listening to on her nomination, by which they questioned the actual fact she has by no means worn a choose’s robes and overtly questioned on the knowledge of appointing somebody so younger to a job requiring broad data of the state’s complicated authorized codes.
The council additionally famous that, if and when Dewar joins the SJC, she is going to be capable of spend practically 27 years shaping Massachusetts legislation earlier than she reaches the court docket’s obligatory retirement age of 70.
Despite these considerations, members of the council had been very impressed with the breadth of her exceptional authorized profession.
“She has been involved in every type of law,” Councilor Marilyn Devaney stated. “I was never so impressed with anyone.”
Dewar clerked in any respect three ranges of the federal judiciary, together with at one level for former U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer. She’s additionally labored as an appellate and trial lawyer and as a civil rights advocate.
Dewar joined then Attorney General Healey’s workplace as State Solicitor in 2016, the place she advises the AG’s workers on when to enchantment court docket selections and when to file amicus briefs, doing a lot of her work with and earlier than the SJC.
Dewar was confirmed by a vote of 7-0, with Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll appearing ex officio. The usually nine-member physique is absent a District-2 councilor.
With the council’s approval the soon-to-be SJC Associate Justice must be sworn in by the governor, and for her predecessor, Association Justice Elspeth Cypher, to retire. Elspeth, who like her six different high-court colleagues was appointed by former Gov. Charlie Baker, is scheduled to step down on the finish of the week and can take a place at Boston College Law School.
“I’m thrilled that the Governor’s Council unanimously confirmed Bessie Dewar’s nomination. She’s an experienced attorney and a consensus builder who will make an excellent Supreme Judicial Court Justice. We look forward to swearing her in soon,” Healey stated in a press release.
Dewar shouldn’t be the primary individual to affix the state’s highest court docket with out first serving on a decrease bench. Former Associate Justice Robert Cordy was nominated by Republican Gov. Bill Weld and confirmed in 2001, after serving as a federal prosecutor and advisor to the governor however by no means as a choose. Cordy retired from the court docket in 2016.
Dewar, a Jamaica Plain resident and mom of two, is a graduate of Harvard University, Yale Law, and Cambridge College.
Herald wire providers contributed.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”