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	Lynch Makes High Court Pick By Lauren R. Dorgan Monitor June 2, 2009 http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090602/FRONTPAGE/906020301 Conboy praised as innovative judge Gov. John Lynch announced yesterday that he will nominate Superior Court Judge Carol Ann Conboy to serve on the New Hampshire Supreme Court. Conboy took the long road to the top of the legal profession, serving in the Air Force during the Vietnam War and teaching English at Merrimack Valley High School and Manchester's Southside Junior High School before becoming a lawyer. Conboy, 61, of Bow, has served on the superior court since 1992, presiding over a wide array of high-profile cases, and she's been mentioned for several years as a potential state Supreme Court justice. If approved by the Executive Council, Conboy would fill the vacancy left by Richard Galway, who retired in February. A 1978 graduate of Franklin Pierce Law Center, Conboy would be the first graduate of the Concord law school, founded in 1973, to serve on the state's highest court. She would also be the second woman ever appointed to the high court bench. "She has a diverse background, and brings to the courtroom a fair and balanced approach and an unwavering commitment to justice," Lynch said in a statement announcing his plan to officially nominate Conboy at the Executive Council meeting tomorrow. Lawyers who've dealt with Conboy praised her as a thoughtful and smart judge who hasn't been afraid to embrace innovations in the courtroom. "She's an excellent judge and has always been innovative and thoughtful," said attorney Chuck Douglas, a former Supreme Court justice. "She's a believer that you should understand the case if you're going to be sitting on it." Douglas recalled that when sitting in Manchester, Conboy "put the witness chair in the middle of the courtroom so that you really could observe the witness rather than just having a head appear behind a barrier." Ellen Arnold, president of the New Hampshire Bar Association, said Conboy is "universally known for her thoughtfulness, her intelligence, her compassion from the bench." Arnold, a former colleague of Conboy at the McLane, Graf, Raulerson & Middleton law firm in Manchester, also praised Conboy's willingness to innovate. "One of the things that she's known for was she was one of the first superior court justices to allow jurors to take notes during trials," Arnold said. Some of Conboy's ideas have caught on: Federal court Judge Joseph LaPlante recently cited Conboy as his inspiration for allowing juries to submit questions during federal trials, according to the Nashua Telegraph. Lynch selected Conboy from a list of candidates selected by the governor's Judicial Selection Commission, according to his office. In her 17-year career on the bench, Conboy has seen a wide array of cases. She dealt with the state's legal battles with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester over audits of sexual abuse cases. She presided over the infamous divorce case of former Supreme Court justice Stephen Thayer. She upheld the right of the State Employees' Association to deduct "fair-share" payments from the paychecks of nonunion employees. And she struck down a 2007 law that allowed easy access to voter databases to only the state's two major political parties. Since Galway's retirement in February, the Supreme Court has been down to four justices, which has increased the workload for all the judges and sometimes meant the court has had to call in a substitute judge in order to have a quorum, said spokeswoman Laura Kiernan. Last year, asked by Lynch for money-saving ideas to help balance the state's 2009 budget, Chief Justice John Broderick wrote that if the governor left open a seat on the high court from February to June, the end of the state's fiscal year, the state could save $68,373 in salary and benefits. Lynch's office was noncommittal about whether it had taken that suggestion. In his letter, Broderick noted that if the new justice started on or after Friday, he or she would receive no state pay until Fiscal 2010. Conboy's nomination will be submitted tomorrow. After that, the Executive Council will schedule a hearing before taking a vote. Douglas, a prominent Republican, had previously called on Lynch to nominate a Republican to the Supreme Court, saying the court had grown lopsided, with three Democrats and one independent. Yesterday, Douglas said he was satisfied. "I'm very pleased with this choice as someone who has not been active in politics," Douglas said. "She's not a political person, and she calls them like she sees them."
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