Hassan Nominates Two Judges to the Superior Court, One to the Circuit Court

Continuing her efforts to ensure a fair, just and effective judicial system, Governor Maggie Hassan today announced that she will nominate two judges to serve on the Superior Court and one to serve on the Circuit Court at Wednesday’s Governor and Council meeting.

Hassan will nominate Amy L. Ignatius of Concord and Andrew R. Schulman of Bedford to serve on the Superior Court, and she will nominate Suzanne M. Gorman of Goffstown to serve on the Circuit Court. All three nominees were recommended by the Governor’s Judicial Selection Commission, a bipartisan panel created by Governor Hassan to broadly seek judicial candidates, evaluate all potential applicants and recommend qualified applicants to the Governor based on experience, good character and judicial temperament.

“An effective, fair and transparent judicial system is critical to our democracy, requiring highly capable judges with the utmost experience, character and integrity,” Hassan said. “These three nominees have a broad range of experience, including managing complex civil litigation. All three nominees bring a longstanding commitment to public service and justice, and all have demonstrated the temperament and character necessary to be exemplary judges. I thank them for their commitment to serving the people of New Hampshire.”

Amy Ignatius currently serves as the Chairman of the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission (PUC), where she has overseen complex, multi-party legal proceedings and worked to ensure that customers of regulated utilities receive safe, adequate and reliable service at just and reasonable rates. She has served on the PUC since 2009 and was appointed Chairman in 2012. Prior to the PUC, Ignatius served as the Director of New Hampshire Office of Energy and Planning, two stints as General Counsel for the PUC and as Executive Director of the New England Conference of Public Utilities Commissioners. During six years in the New Hampshire Department of Justice, she worked on both criminal and civil cases, represented state agencies and was ultimately appointed Senior Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Consumer Protection Antitrust Bureau. Ignatius also worked with state and federal agencies on employment, workplace safety, utility regulation, planning and zoning, health care and corporate matters while in private practice at the Devine Millimet firm. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin and her law degree from the University of Virginia.

Andrew Schulman is currently a partner at Getman, Schulthess & Steere, P.A. in Manchester, where he has practiced since 2000. His current practice includes civil, commercial and criminal litigation at the trial and appellate level in both state and federal court. Schulman began his career in 1985 as a Staff Attorney in Manchester for the New Hampshire Public Defender Program, and after a brief stint at Hill & Barlow in Boston, returned to the New Hampshire Public Defender Program, serving as a Staff Attorney and Homicide/Major Crimes Attorney in Manchester and Nashua until 1997. He was the Director of the Criminal Practice Clinic and Assistant Clinical Professor at Franklin Pierce Law Center (now UNH School of Law) from 1997 to 2000, and he was awarded the New Hampshire Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ 2004 Champions of Justice award. Schulman currently serves on the New Hampshire Executive Branch Ethics Committee. He received his undergraduate degree from Haverford College and his law degree from Harvard Law School.

Suzanne Gorman currently serves as the Chief of the New Hampshire Department of Justice Civil Appellate Division, a position that she has held since 2007, supervising and managing all aspects of appellate litigation in the Civil Bureau and supervising all civil appellate litigation in the Environmental, Consumer Protection, and Transportation and Construction bureaus, as well as the Charitable Trusts Unit. She began her career in 1988 as a clerk in the New Hampshire Supreme Court for Associate Justice W. Stephen Thayer and was an associate in the litigation department at the McLane firm in Manchester from 1989 to 1995. She has been a Senior Assistant Attorney General at the New Hampshire Department of Justice since 2000, served as Assistant Attorney General from 1995 to 2000 and was the Chief of the Client Counseling Unit in the Civil Bureau from 2006 to 2007. Gorman is a graduate of Boston College and received her law degree from Suffolk University Law School, where she was also the Executive Editor of the Suffolk University Law Review.

All three nominations are subject to Executive Council approval and will be formally submitted at Wednesday’s Governor and Council meeting at the Seacoast Science Center in Rye.

Submitted by the office of Gov. Maggie Hassan.