Maureen McKenna Goldberg

Goldberg is currently the acting state Supreme Court chief justice and, if chosen for the post on a permanent basis, would be the first female chief justice in Rhode Islandhistory. In 1997, she became the third woman to serve on the Supreme Court upon being appointed by Gov. Lincoln C. Almond. Previously, she served as a judge on the Superior Court and before that, was a lawyer in private practice and a hard-driving state prosecutor who tried several high-profile cases. She has earned a reputation as an outspoken and sometimes brusque judge during her tenure on the bench. “I call it like I see it,” she says. She is married to former Senate Minority Leader Robert D. Goldberg, who is now a lobbyist at the State House. Her husband’s role as a powerful lawyer and lobbyist has led her to recuse herself from deciding some major cases that have come before the court.

Francis X. Flaherty

Flaherty, who joined the high court in 2003, is a combat veteran of Vietnam and a former Democratic mayor of Warwick, the state’s second-largest city. Before joining the court, he had a private law practice and was a lobbyist at the State House. U.S. Rep. James R. Langevin, a Warwick native, says he considers Flaherty to be one of his mentors in politics and in life.

Paul A. Suttell

Suttell also joined the high court in 2003 after being a Family Court judge for 13 years, and before that, a Republican state legislator from Little Compton. During his Supreme Court swearing-in ceremony, he was praised by Chief Justice Frank J. Williams for ruling “with decency and fairness” and for possessing “an unflappable geniality” and a talent for “making everyone feel important and welcome” in the Family Court. Suttell was in private practice before joining the Family Court in 1990. From 1979 to 1982, he was legal counsel to the minority leader of the state House of Representatives.

William P. Robinson III

Robinson is the newest member of the Supreme Court. He took the bench in September 2004, taking the seat left vacant by Robert G. Flanders Jr., who resigned. Robinson, a Democrat, spent 27 years practicing law and trying cases for the Providence firm of Edwards & Angell. He specialized in First Amendment issues and represented Channel 10 reporter Jim Taricani in his fight against having to disclose who gave him an undercover corruption tape that showed Frank Corrente, a top aide to former Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., taking a bribe in his City Hall office. Robinson once thought he would be a priest and was educated at the University of Louvain, Belgium’s Catholic University. Instead, he got doctorates in French and Spanish literature, and then became a professor of French at the University of Connecticut before earning his law degree.

Robert Clark Corrente

Corrente, a Republican, is currently the U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island but expects to be replaced by President Obama. He became the state’s top federal prosecutor in 2004, after former U.S. Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee recommended him to President Bush. As U.S. Attorney, Corrente has made fighting public corruption one of his top priorities. Before taking that job, he was a partner in the Providence firm of Hinckley, Allen & Snyder. He specialized in business and commercial litigation in federal and state courts. Corrente was chairman of the Rhode Island Judicial Nominating Commission from 1998 to 2000 –– the panel that will screen applicants for the job of chief justice. Before becoming U.S. Attorney, he also served as a member of the Rhode Island Supreme Court’s Ethics Advisory Panel in 1997, and was named its chair in 2002.

Francis J. Darigan Jr.

Darigan, a member of the Superior Court who formerly sat on the state District Court, was a finalist for the chief justice’s job in 2000, when Williams was selected by Governor Lincoln C. Almond for the position. In recent years, his most high-profile case was presiding over The Station nightclub fire criminal cases that were brought against the owners of the club, Michael and Jeffrey Derderian, which ended without a trial after the brothers each pleaded no-contest in a controversial plea agreement to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter. Darigan, a former Democratic mayoral candidate and Providence councilman, is known for his human touch. He has chaired a court committee on women and members of minority groups; those who supported his previous candidacy for the job of chief justice praised the work he does in the community helping immigrants settle in the area.

Patrick T. Conley

Conley, a lawyer/historian who taught for years at Providence College, is the author, with former Supreme Court Associate Justice Robert G. Flanders Jr., of a book on the Rhode Island Constitution. In a review of that book, political science Prof. Jay S. Goodman, who is also a lawyer, said that “the simple truth is that Conley has created the modern field of Rhode Island constitutional history.” Conley was a delegate to the Rhode Island Constitutional Convention of 1973 and, at its invitation, has delivered four Law Day addresses to the state Supreme Court. He has been described by Rhode Island Lawyer’s Weekly as “the guru” of tax title law and has successfully argued dozens of cases before the state Supreme Court. He has qualified in the javelin event for the 2009 National Senior games in San Francisco, and has been involved in recent years in a controversial redevelopment of property on the Providence waterfront off Allens Avenue.

— Tracy Breton