Posts Tagged ‘Connecticut’

From TheDay.com:

The end is drawing near for Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz’s legal battle to establish her eligibility to serve as Connecticut’s next attorney general.

Attorneys representing Bysiewicz, the state Democratic and Republican parties and Bysiewicz’s office appeared Tuesday in Hartford Superior Court for two long sessions of argument before Judge Michael Sheldon. Sheldon will rule on the meaning of the state’s qualifying standards for attorneys general, and also whether those existing standards are constitutional.

Bysiewicz has sued the state Democratic party and her own office in an effort to prove that she meets the existing standard of legal experience for an attorney general – 10 years of active practice at the Connecticut bar. Bysiewicz argues that the combination of her four years in private practice and her work as Secretary of the State should enable her to meet that standard.

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From Courant.com:

In an extraordinary and at times uncomfortable appearance on a Superior Court witness stand, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz acknowledged Wednesday that in six of the years between 1997 and 2008 she signed state professional or tax documents certifying that she “did not work … as an attorney” or did not “engage in the practice of law.”

The forms were introduced as evidence by an attorney for the state Republican Party, Eliot Gersten, in an effort to undercut Bysiewicz’s claim in a lawsuit that she has enough legal experience to make her eligible to run for state attorney general.

It was just one of several attacks by Gersten on Bysiewicz’s qualifications as a lawyer during the first day of a trial that will continue today. Bysiewicz has sued her own office and the state Democratic Party, whose nomination for attorney general she hopes to win at its convention next month, in an effort to establish her credentials to become the state’s chief legal official.

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From New Haven Register:

She said she never filed pleadings, participated in a strategy session nor helped prepare witnesses, and appears to have filed only a handful of collaborative briefs, with the most recent one rejected as untimely.

Bysiewicz will be in Hartford Superior Court today before Judge Michael Sheldon who is being asked to determine if her less than six years of private practice here and her 11 years as secretary of the state count towards the 10 years of “active practice” of the law in Connecticut as required by state statute.

She brought the suit to clarify her status after a legal blogger questioned whether she has the qualifications. The state GOP, acting as an intervenor, questions that as well and put her under oath in a deposition that lasted some 10 hours.

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From New Haven Register:

Attorney Wesley W. Horton quickly conceded Tuesday that a newspaper request for a copy of a video of his client, Sec. of the State Susan Bysiewicz, answering questions on her qualifications to run for attorney general, can be made public.

Horton withdrew his request for a protective order in the opening minutes of a hearing Monday before Superior Court Judge Michael R. Sheldon.

“After reviewing the law in this area about five minutes ago, I reached the conclusion that The Courant is correct,” Horton said in response to a motion by the Hartford Courant attorney, William S. Fish Jr.

A transcript of an estimated 10 hours of video shot over three days was released late Monday by Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s office. The video, which is time-consuming to copy, is expected to be ready today.

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