ELEVEN WOMEN have served on the state’s Supreme Judicial Court since it was first established in 1692. Gov. Maura Healey is hoping Elizabeth “Bessie” Dewar, her first pick for the high court and a former colleague in the attorney general’s office, will be No. 12.

After spending two hours in front of a panel tasked with approving the governor’s judicial nominees, Dewar appears poised for that ascension, with several members of the independently elected Governor’s Council saying they plan to vote for her.

“Your resume is stellar,” said Eileen Duff, a Governor’s Council member. “Absolutely no question.” But Duff said there is concern “out in the public” that her judicial temperament is unknown. “You have not sat on the bench at all. And yet here we are being asked to appoint you to the highest court in our state.”

That’s a “fair question,” Dewar said. “I would bring a lot of experience with the different courts of the Commonwealth, in a different way,” she added, noting that for a decade she has worked with the Supreme Judicial Court as part of her duties in the attorney general’s office.

Healey, her former boss, called the soft-spoken Dewar a “trusted counselor, advising me and our team on the most complicated legal issues that faced our office” during her time as attorney general. Dewar is a “go-to” person for lawyers inside Massachusetts as well as state solicitors across the country, both Democrats and Republicans, Healey said. “She’s that good, that trusted.”

After testifying in support of Dewar, Healey remained in the audience for the rest of the hearing, looking up from her phone to listen to the questioning of Dewar. Healey sat next to her chief of staff, Kate Cook, who worked with Healey and Dewar in the attorney general’s office and serves on Healey’s Supreme Judicial Nominating Commission, which recommended Dewar.

Healey has a second pick to make soon, as Justice David Lowy plans to retire in February and take the job of general counsel at the University of Massachusetts.

Dewar testified before the independently elected Governor’s Council, taking questions about her age, the fact that she hasn’t spent any time as a judge, as well as her views on abortion, the Second Amendment, and whether former president Donald Trump should be blocked from the ballot over his support for the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

If confirmed, Dewar will join a court that is currently made up entirely of people appointed by Gov. Charlie Baker. Dewar would replace Elspeth Cypher, who is retiring on January 12 after nearly seven years on the court.

Dewar, 43, is a Harvard University and Yale Law School graduate who became state solicitor in 2016, after serving as first assistant attorney general and assistant state solicitor. The state solicitor, a position inside the attorney general’s office, handles briefing and arguing appeals.

Dewar’s resume also includes three years as an associate at Ropes & Gray LLP, a year as law clerk to former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, and a year as a staff attorney at the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia.

Duff also pressed Dewar on the Second Amendment, abortion rights, and same-sex marriage. Dewar said she has spent time defending the state’s strict gun laws and she would follow precedent set by the US Supreme Court on the federal constitutional right. On abortion, “these rights are still very much protected under our state law,” she said, as is same-sex marriage. “That is not going anywhere.”

Asked whether the death penalty, banned at the state level, is considered cruel and unusual punishment, Dewar said she personally opposes it, and if confirmed to the SJC she would follow the law. “Beyond that I couldn’t comment,” she said.

Chris Iannella, another Governor’s Council member, nodded to the legal decision out of Colorado, where the state’s high court said Tuesday that former president Donald Trump is disqualified from the state’s 2024 ballots because he backed the January 6, 2021,insurrection, supporting the riot inside the US Capitol. Iannella asked Dewar whether she believes the court should make that decision or leave it to voters.

Dewar said she has not read the decision. State courts do have an important role to uphold democracy and the state constitution, she added. “They do not make the law but they have to ensure the law is followed.”

Some councilors mentioned her age. One councilor noted if she stayed under the mandatory retirement age of 70, she would be on the court until 2050. Another asked how she expects to stay engaged in the job if she stays for that long. 

Dewar pointed to law clerks that she is looking forward to mentoring. “It keeps you young to have young people cycling through your life constantly.”

Governor’s Councilor Joseph Ferreira raised her age with one of the witnesses Dewar asked to testify on her behalf. Ferreira, who acknowledged he became a police chief at 42, said she is “very young” for the SJC post, and asked whether she’ll be able to stand up to her fellow justices.

Douglas Hallward-Driemeier, a Ropes & Gray attorney who has known Dewar for 13 years and hired her as an associate, said Dewar was never cowed during her time with the law firm. “Bessie was always willing to push back,” he said.

In his remarks, he added that her nickname while she worked with him was “Chainsaw Dewar,” because of her ability to edit down a legal brief and focus on the “things that matter.”

She also treated the law as something that affects people, not an academic exercise, he added. She dealt with physicians who were challenging a Florida statute that imposed a gag order on them, blocking them from speaking about the dangers of guns in a home. The law was eventually struck down in federal court. 

“They were taking a step of great courage to be willing to be identified in this lawsuit,” Hallward-Driemeier said. “It was difficult procedurally, difficult substantively, and it was difficult because of the tension it created and the vulnerability that our plaintiffs felt in bringing that. Bessie was able to address all of those things.”