Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey nominates her ex-girlfriend to state’s highest court
May we all get along so well with our exes.
Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey wants to elevate her former flame to the highest court in the commonwealth.
On Wednesday, Healey, 52, announced the nomination of state Appeals Court Associate Justice Gabrielle Wolohojian, 63, to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
“There is no one more qualified or better prepared to serve on the Supreme Judicial Court than Justice Wolohojian,” Healey said in a statement. “She has an exceptional understanding of the law and a strong commitment to the administration of justice.”
The gov’s nomination announcement made no mention of the pair’s personal history.
Healey and Wolohojian met while working at the white-shoe law firm Hale & Dorr, aka WilmerHale, and the pair became a couple in 2007, according to a 2015 Boston Magazine profile of Healey, then Massachusetts attorney general.
The two have since parted ways, with Healey moving into her new partner Joanna Lydgate’s home in suburban Arlington, Mass., the Boston Globe reported this past summer.
Wolohojian is Healey’s second nomination to fill an opening on the seven-member Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which counts legendary Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. among its past members.
The nomination must now be confirmed by the nine-member Governor’s Council.
Healy nominated Wolohojian to fill a seat vacated by Justice David Lowy, an appointee of Republican former Gov. Charlie Baker, who is leaving the court to take a job at his undergraduate alma mater, the University of Massachusetts.
The other five current Supreme Judicial Court justices are also Baker appointees.
Wolohojian was first named to the state Appeals Court in 2008, has authored over 900 decisions, and played a role in over 2,7000 appeals, per Healey’s office.
“Wolohojian is uniquely qualified to join the Supreme Judicial Court at a time when it enjoys and is committed to maintaining its reputation as one of the most respected state supreme courts in the country,” retired Associate Justice Geraldine Hines said in a statement.
The granddaughter of Armenian immigrants, the New York-born Wolohojian worked in the office of the independent counsel during the early days of the Whitewater investigation involving former President Bill Clinton.
