Would-Be AG Drops Motion to Seal Depo in Which She Discusses Why She Is Qualified for Office
Seeking to force the state Democratic Party to acknowledge that she is qualified for run for office as Connecticut attorney general, secretary of state Susan Bysiewicz sued and, beginning last week, was in a deposition discussing her legal experience.
But the deposition apparently didn’t go well, as evidenced by the fact that, midway through the proceeding, her lawyers sought a protective order to prevent public release of a transcript or video, reports the Connecticut Law Tribune in an article reprinted in New York Lawyer (reg. req.).
Among other statements, Bysiewicz, despite having practiced for eight years in law firms and as an in-house corporate lawyer, admitted that she never wrote a legal brief, the article states, relying on “secondhand reports from lawyers connected to the case.”
Plus, her actual court experience also reportedly is minimal—Bysiewicz said her official courtroom appearances were during law school, when she as sworn in as a member of the Connecticut bar some 20 years ago and when she appeared pro se in a small claims case.
She is a graduate of Duke University School of Law, according to her state of Connecticut biographical page.
To run for the AG’s office, candidates must have been in active law practice for at least a decade.
After the Hartford Courant filed a motion to intervene in the would-be attorney general’s request for a protective order, Bysiewicz decided to drop it, the Connecticut Mirror reports today.
She is represented by a leading appellate lawyer, Wesley Horton, and his partner, Daniel Krisch, the Tribune reports, and the state Republican party, which intervened in the case, is represented by an “ecstatic” Eliot Gersten.
Additional coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Legal Blogger Triggers Questions About AG Candidate’s Qualifications”
