Gov. Maura Healey on Friday picked Elizabeth “Bessie” Dewar, the state solicitor and a former US Supreme Court clerk, as her first nomination to the state Supreme Judicial Court.
In a statement, Healey called Dewar, 43, a “consensus builder who has significant experience” working with the SJC’s seven justices. “She is a true student of the institution, and I am confident that she is the right person to fill this seat in this pivotal moment for the Court,” said Healey.
The nomination is Healey’s first opportunity to make her mark on a court entirely composed of appointments made by her Republican predecessor, Charlie Baker.
If confirmed by the Governor’s Council, an independent panel that vets judicial nominees, Dewar would fill the planned vacancy created through the departure of Associate Justice Elspeth Cypher, who is scheduled to retire on January 12 after seven years on the court.
The state solicitor’s office, which is within the state attorney general’s office, works on appellate strategy, briefs, and preparation for oral arguments. The appellate work mostly involves the state’s highest court.
In choosing Dewar, Healey is turning to another former colleague from the attorney general’s office. Rebecca Tepper, Healey’s energy and environmental cabinet chief, served a similar role in the attorney general’s office, while chief of staff Kate Cook was the first assistant attorney general. Jillian Fennimore also moved over from the attorney general’s communications office to serve a similar role in the governor’s office.
Dewar, a Jamaica Plain resident, is a Harvard and Yale graduate who clerked for former Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer. Her resume also includes stints at Ropes & Gray law firm, the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, and as a law clerk at the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco and the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
She has served as state solicitor since 2016. For a brief period in early 2023, when Healey, then the outgoing attorney general, took the oath of office for governor, and Andrea Campbell had not yet been sworn in as the next attorney general, Dewar served as acting attorney general.
Rebecca Hart Holder, head of Reproductive Equity Now, an abortion rights advocacy group, praised the Dewar nomination, saying state supreme courts have a “vital role” in defending rights after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Dewar “has continuously led efforts to advance reproductive equity within Massachusetts’ borders and combat anti-abortion attacks across the country,” Hart Holder said, adding that she authored briefs against a six-week abortion ban in Texas.
Healey’s SJC nominating commission is still accepting nominations to fill another expected SJC vacancy, that of Associate Justice David Lowy, who is stepping down in February and going to work as general counsel at the University of Massachusetts.
The nominating commission, created through an executive order in September, includes Healey chief of staff Cook; Paige Scott Reed, the governor’s chief legal counsel; Geraldine Hines, who retired from the SJC in 2017; Mary Strother, senior vice president and general counsel at Northeastern University; and Marty Murphy, a trial lawyer and former prosecutor.