SULLIVAN COUNTY –– Deputy County Attorney Tom Cawley, who intends to run against Acting District Attorney Brian Conaty this November, confirmed reports that he is no longer seeking the Democratic endorsement for District Attorney (DA)  and that he switched parties to Republican.

Having met with Democrats locally, Cawley said he received significant pushback, claiming they painted him as an illegitimate Democratic candidate.

This included, he said, being attacked for “supposedly be-smudging or denigrating the work of the outgoing DA [State Supreme Court Justice Meagan Galligan].” 

Cawley, who worked as an assistant district attorney (ADA) for seven years under former DA Steve Lungen in the ‘90s, said he hasn’t mentioned her name and that his criticism is that the office itself needs to be retooled, going back to a “vertical prosecution” system where an ADA stays with a case from start to finish, gaining more experience in the process. 

This practice, Cawley said, ended under former DA and now Sullivan County Court Judge James Farrell, who switched to a tiered or horizontal system, where young ADAs primarily handled misdemeanor work with little authority over their own cases.

“I got to try a felony jury trial inside the first year I was in [Lungen’s] office,” said Cawley. “There’s been a hue and cry that we can’t get attorneys to come there, and we need more money. The problem is, it’s not just the money. My starting salary [in 1993] was $32,000. So I didn’t go there for the money. I went there for the training and experience, which I’ve gotten, and that is no longer happening.”

The Democrat reported that at the recent forum held by the Sullivan County Democratic Committee, both Cawley and Conaty expressed support for the vertical structure, not just because it allows young attorneys to gain valuable experience and entice them to stay, but also because it would cut down on the backlog of felony cases which has built up over time.

Cawley also said that in his meeting with local Democrats, he was asked if he ever “finessed” an opinion as Parliamentarian of the County Legislature, in favor of any particular legislator - something he called “unethical” and which he’d not do.

All this “crystalized” his decision to change parties.

“The distinct opinion I drew, especially at the forum, is that [the Democratic Committee] is not on the same page as me and I needed to make a change,” said Cawley.

Having spent the majority of the past two decades in the County Attorney’s Office, Cawley has stated previously that he misses the excitement of criminal litigation and trial work in the DA’s office. Although he is still a trial attorney, currently prosecuting civil cases for the County, he’d like to return to being a full-time criminal trial attorney.

Another motivation for running is trying to remedy a DA’s office that he feels is in “bad shape.” 

“They’re short four people and have no senior trial attorneys, which that office has always had,” said Cawley. “... I don’t want to see it go over the cliff. I want to see if I can fix it, and I don’t think there was any way that was going to happen if I stayed on the Democratic ticket.”

Cawley now seeks the Republican endorsement for DA and continues to believe he is the best candidate for the job.

“No disrespect to Mr. Conaty, but he’s four years in practice,” said Cawley. “I don’t see how he thinks he can do it. I honestly don’t think he has the training experience, both as a trial attorney and as an administrator. I’m not a believer that a guy that was trained in that [tiered] system is ready to do what needs to be done to change [the office], because it ain’t working. I can tell you that.”