Photo: State House News Service
BOSTON (State House News Service) — Gov. Maura Healey's first nominee to the Supreme Judicial Court was unanimously confirmed to the bench Wednesday.
There was little doubt that the Governor's Council would confirm Elizabeth "Bessie" Dewar, the state solicitor tapped by Healey to fill the SJC seat that Justice Elspeth Cypher is giving up when she steps down at the end of this week to take a position at Boston College Law School. There was little resistance to Dewar's nomination during her December hearing with the council, and councilors voted 7-0 Wednesday to approve her for the bench.
"This is just an amazing person and how welcome she's going to be. And she has been involved in every type of law," Councilor Marilyn Devaney said before the vote. "I was never so impressed with anyone as she is. And she has compassion. That's what I'm looking for."
Healey's office said Wednesday morning that the governor would schedule Dewar's swearing-in "for a future date" if the Governor's Council confirmed her.
Once she is sworn in, Dewar will be the first justice since Robert Cordy to sit on the SJC without already having been a judge in a lower court. A former federal prosecutor and top legal advisor to Gov. William Weld, Cordy was nominated by Gov. Paul Cellucci in 2000.
Dewar is 43 years old and won't reach the state's mandatory judicial retirement age of 70 until July 4, 2050.
Just as Cordy had a working relationship with Weld and Cellucci, Dewar and Healey have professional ties.
Healey in 2016 named Dewar to serve as Massachusetts's second state solicitor. In that role, Dewar supervised the briefing and arguing of appeals by attorneys throughout the attorney general's office, advised the AG on exercising her authority to decide whether to appeal from adverse decisions, and led the office's "friend of the court" amicus brief practice in state and federal courts.
Dewar had previously worked as an appellate and trial-level lawyer at Ropes & Gray, was a civil rights advocate at the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, and served as a law clerk for Justice Stephen Breyer at the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge William Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals, and U.S. District Court Judge Louis Pollak. She is a graduate of Harvard College and the Yale Law School and has a master's degree from the University of Cambridge.
Before Healey resigned as attorney general to be inaugurated as governor last January, she appointed Dewar as first assistant attorney general. That move put Dewar in position to serve as acting attorney general between Healey's Jan. 5 resignation and Attorney General Andrea Campbell's Jan. 18 inauguration.
When Dewar is seated at the SJC, it will be the first time since December 2020 that the high court will include any justice not nominated by Gov. Charlie Baker. The Swampscott Republican filled all seven seats on the SJC during his two terms in office.
Written by Colin A. Young/SHNS
Follow WBZ NewsRadio: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | iHeartmedia App | TikTok