Highlights Of Leigh I. Saufley’s Career

A transgender student’s right to use a school bathroom. The constitutionality of Maine’s Sex Offender Registry. Ranked-choice voting. The right to harvest rockweed on private property. Warrantless blood tests after fatal crashes. Those are some of the major issues the Maine Supreme Judicial Court decided while Leigh I. Saufley served on the court. Next week, Saufley will leave the bench to become dean of her alma mater, the University of Maine School of Law in Portland. Infographic by Natalie Williams and Judy Harrison | BDN Infographic by Natalie Williams and Judy Harrison | BDN One of Saufley’s greatest strengths is her ability to hone in on the essential legal question, according to Portland attorney Daniel Murphy, who clerked for the chief justice in 2002. “During her tenure on the bench, she heard thousands of appeals and authored countless thoughtful, well-reasoned opinions that affected many people and helped to forge the common law in the state of Maine,” he said Wednesday.