May 22, 2003
Maine Supreme Court Justice Saufley Addresses Graduates
at Law School Commencement
Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court Leigh
Ingalls Saufley, who graduated from the University of Maine
School of Law in 1980, is returning to her alma mater to give
the Commencement address at the School of Law's graduation
ceremony, which begins at 2 p.m., Saturday, May 24 in Merrill
Auditorium, Portland.
There are 62 graduates receiving degrees this year, and
59 of them will be at the ceremony. During the ceremony, The
L. Kinvin Wroth Distinguished Alumni Award will be presented
to Richard L. Roe ('77), who is a faculty member at Georgetown
University School of Law, where he founded and directs the
"Street Law" program, in which law students teach high school
kids about the law.
Saufley, a graduate of the University of Maine at Orono ('76),
was the youngest chief justice in Maine's history when she
was appointed by Governor Angus King in 2001. Prior to her
appointment, she was with the Maine Attorney General's Office
for about 10 years, becoming one of Maine's first female deputy
attorneys general; was appointed to Maine District Court in
1990; and appointed to Maine Superior Court in 1993. She was
appointed an Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court
in 1997.
Bronx native Denis Culley was elected student speaker by
his fellow graduates. A graduate of the University of New
York at Stony Brook, he moved to Mercer in 1981 with his wife,
where they live in a solar-powered and wood-heated house they
built themselves. Culley became active in local politics,
serving on the Mercer Board of Selectmen, on the Town of Mercer
Planning Board and Budget Committee, and as a director of
SAD #54. Before entering law school he was a horse logger,
farrier, and commercial orchardist. He has made apple boxes,
sold pulpwood and lumber, and was chosen as the Somerset County
Outstanding Woodlot Owner of the Year in 1995.
Culley, who rented a house in Portland while attending school,
will return to Mercer and will clerk for the next year for
the Maine Superior Court in Augusta beginning in August.
Graduate Anna Astvatsaturova was born in Baku, Azerbaijan,
USSR. As Armenian citizens of Azerbaijan, her family was forced
to leave and become refugees in Armenia. They filed for refugee
status at the American Embassy in Moscow, and came to the
U.S. in 1992, settling in Wahpeton, North Dakota, when she
was in the eighth grade. She graduated cum laude from the
University of North Dakota in 2000. Recently she was selected
as Outstanding Student of the Year by "Who's Who: American
Law Students."
While a student at the Law School, she has been president
of the International Law Society, and was instrumental in
organizing a symposium on the United Nations International
Criminal Court (ICC) during the fall of 2002. She was one
of 25 students chosen to participate in the ICC last July
at the UN, and in September got a job as the director of programs
of the Independent Student Coalition for the International
Criminal Court (ISC-ICC).
Astvatsaturova hopes to pursue a career in law in the New
York City area while continuing her work for the ISC-ICC,
which she describes as being "...like a baby. I love it--it
is a personal passion."
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