Interview with Kate Cook, Chief of Staff to Governor Maura Healey
By Mary Strother
Women lead at all political levels in the Commonwealth. Kate Cook currently serves as Chief of Staff to the Governor’s Office, and previously was Chief Legal Counsel to Governor Deval Patrick, General Counsel to the Massachusetts Senate Ways and Means Committee, and an Assistant Corporation Counsel for the City of Boston. She also spent seven years in private practice as a partner at a mid-size law firm. She was interviewed by Mary Strother, former First Assistant Attorney General.
Mary Strother: Can you tell us about your personal and professional background, including what you’re doing now and the path that led you to the role you have?
Kate Cook: I had a law school professor once that said, “some of you are going to have law careers that’ll be a straight line, and that’s terrific. And some of you are going to have careers that are a zig-zag line,” and he drew a zig-zag line on a whiteboard behind him. And mine has definitely been a zig-zag. I’ve done a lot of different things, and I’ve loved each and every one. I’m currently the Chief of Staff to Governor Healey. And prior to that, I was her first assistant attorney general, just like you, Mary.
Mary Strother: You mentioned that your law professor said your career might be a zig-zag. Could you give us a little bit of your background, like where you grew up and where you went to law school? A little bit more about the zig and the zag?
Kate Cook: I grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas. It’s a national park and it’s where Bill Clinton actually grew up. I went to Bill Clinton’s high school, a large public high school. The city has a horse racing track in the center of town and beautiful natural hot springs. Very interesting place, very different than Massachusetts. I left when I was 18 for college in Rhode Island and then moved to Massachusetts for law school. I went to Harvard Law School. And I’ve never moved back. I love being in Massachusetts. It’s been a great place to live, work and raise a family.
Mary Strother: What made you decide you wanted to go to law school?
Kate Cook: It was a combination of things. I was very interested in politics and government at a young age. My parents talked a lot about politics over the dinner table, and my brother and I could either keep up or be left behind. So, we engaged with them and learned to really care about social issues and political issues, and it seemed clear that being a lawyer was a great way to actually be a part of making a difference in government. And my mom was a lawyer, so I had a wonderful role model in her.
Mary Strother: Tell me a little bit about who your other mentors have been through your career and what sort of impact they’ve had on you.
Kate Cook: I have had so many wonderful mentors. It’s one of the things I love about being a lawyer in the greater Boston area. Since the day I started law school, I began to meet practicing lawyers and law professors. I did clinical work. Every step along the way, I’ve had tremendous, experienced lawyers that have wanted to help show me the way and give advice. And you get to see a lot of different styles – so some are ones that work for you and some are not the right fit, but they’re all great.
I feel like from the time I graduated law school, I was really greeted by the bar associations. They were a very natural home for me to meet a lot of other lawyers at my stage in the profession and certainly to get exposure to more experienced lawyers. My first job after clerking was at the City of Boston Law Department. At the time, Merita Hopkins was corporation counsel, and she was on the Boston Bar Association Council and was very involved with the BBA. In my summer jobs during law school, I was exposed to leadership and the Women’s Bar Association, and a lot of those lawyers also encouraged me to be engaged, and so that immediately created a ripple effect of meeting tremendous talent across areas in the legal profession.
Mary Strother: What do you think is the best advice you’ve received from a mentor?
Kate Cook: I’ve received a lot of great advice and some bad advice, but I think the best advice I got was from Mo Cowan, who has been a tremendous mentor to me, and this was during the Patrick administration.
Mary Strother: You were the governor’s chief legal counsel at that time.
Kate Cook: I was the governor’s chief legal counsel, and Mo was chief of staff. I had walked into the governor’s office, which is the same governor’s office that Maura Healey has today, and there’s this oval shaped table that has been there for years. Many, many folks have sat at it – many very important folks. We were coming in for a staff meeting on some issue de jour with Governor Patrick and a lot of staff and probably some cabinet secretaries. And I did not sit at the table, I sat on the periphery. Mo leaned into my ear and said, “Don’t ever pass up the chance to sit at the table when there’s a seat available.” And so I think it really took some intentionality for me to realize when you walk into a room, you’re there for a reason. People have invited you here to hear from you. Sit at that table. And as the saying goes, that’s how you can lean in. You can’t really lean in from the sidelines. It was really good advice, and it’s funny now to look back and think that I needed to be told that. But at the time, it was really meaningful.
Mary Strother: Is there a piece of advice that you’re glad you ignored?
Kate Cook: Yeah, part of being a lawyer is figuring out what’s right for you. It kind of goes back to the straight line versus the zig-zag. I graduated from Harvard Law School with exorbitant student loans. I paid for the whole thing myself, with interest. And I had a lot of folks that told me you should really just go work at a big firm and pay off those loans before you follow your dreams or, you know, do whatever it is you think you want to do. And I took a chance and a risk and trusted my instincts and went directly to the City of Boston Law Department, which I absolutely loved, and I’m so glad I did.
Mary Strother: During the zig-zags that you’ve taken throughout your career, I know you’ve probably observed a lot of changes. Are there any changes that you’ve observed in the legal profession — either with respect to women or in general, that are worth commenting on?
Kate Cook: I was impressed from the moment I started practicing in Massachusetts, how many phenomenal women leaders we had, whether it was in private law firms, in government, as district attorneys. But if you look around today in 2025, it’s really fabulous to see so many women leaders in high positions of power. I’m talking about people I get to work with every day, like the governor, lieutenant governor, Mayor Wu, the attorney general, the treasurer, the Senate President and the list goes on and on. It really excites me because I think it just is so natural that women are in leadership. And you see that the same is true at law firms as managing partners, and as general counsel in higher ed, like yourself.
Mary Strother: What advice would you give a female attorney who’s new to the bar, or just an attorney in general who’s new to the bar, and trying to get started like you were a number of years ago?
Kate Cook: I would say trust your instincts, and don’t be afraid to take some risks. If something sounds exciting to you and fulfilling and you think it will make you happy, give it a try because the law career can be very long, and there’s not really a right or wrong answer. I’ve had a lot of people over the years that have agreed to meet with me and give me advice and have coffee, and I always want to pay it forward. So, I do get asked by law students and recent grads, if I’ll have coffee with them. I don’t have as much free time as I used to, but I still try to always say yes. And when I do, I usually hear that they’re struggling with, should I do this more traditional thing, or this other thing that makes their eyes light up? And I try to encourage them, if they can make it work for them, given there are some constraints, follow your dreams.
Mary Strother: Work-life balance is so important, and we’ve seen the establishment of the Supreme Judicial Court Lawyer Wellbeing Committee and so many other wellbeing efforts, including at the Boston Bar Association and within law firms. Many people, including myself, turn to exercise as a way to de-stress. You run ultramarathons, including the Leadville 100, which you completed in under 30 hours in 2013 and the Western States 100, which you also completed in under 30 hours in 2023. By the way, 100, that’s 100 miles, correct?
Kate Cook: That’s right.
Mary Strother: And you have some belt buckles to prove it. And by the way, I believe you just recently placed first, the first woman, in the Salt Flats Endurance Run in Utah, the 50K, and you were the fifth place overall in that race. That was two months ago, correct?
Kate Cook: That’s right. There weren’t many people running that race, to be fair. . . . Running for me is a self-care. It truly does keep me kinder and more thoughtful. I have my best thoughts when I’m running. I come back and I feel like my shoulders have gone down an inch or two. It is my happy place. And so probably the mileage is commensurate with the stress.
Mary Strother: Do you listen to music or podcasts or just lose yourself in your own thoughts?
Kate Cook: I do both. It depends on the day. My weekly runs, I do try to cram in podcasts so I can multitask and figure out what’s going on in the world around me. Sometimes if I’m doing a really long run training for a race, I indulge in true crime podcasts. Binge over the miles.
Mary Strother: You have a daughter. Does she support you in any way during your runs?
Kate Cook: She has been at several of my runs and is always the best support. And even if she’s not physically there, she’s front of mind.
