Candidate for Attorney General
Video from the JPP Forum held on March 19, 2014
Bio from Maura Healey’s website:
Maura Healey knows how important the Attorney General’s Office is for Massachusetts families and businesses. Maura has spent years fighting for justice, equal rights, and expanded opportunity, and she has delivered. In the strong, progressive tradition of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, Maura has won victories for Massachusetts families that are felt across the country. Her extensive leadership experience, professionalism and vision make her uniquely qualified to serve as our next Attorney General.Photo from Maura Healey’s website
Attorney General Martha Coakley trusted Maura to head two prominent divisions in the state’s chief law enforcement office – both the Public Protection and Advocacy Bureau and the Business and Labor Bureau. Earlier in her career, Maura served as Chief of the Attorney General’s Civil Rights Division after serving as a private sector attorney, a Middlesex County prosecutor, and, for two years, as a starting point guard on a professional basketball team.
Maura spearheaded the efforts of an extraordinary team in the Commonwealth’s landmark challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and she led the winning argument for Massachusetts in the nation’s first lawsuit striking down the law that discriminated against same-sex married couples. Maura led ground-breaking cases in fair lending and housing, achieved breakthrough settlements to ensure new technologies were accessible to people with disabilities, helped advance legislation and litigation to support access to reproductive health care for women, trained local, state and federal law enforcement on preventing hate crimes and cyber-bullying, and oversaw the Attorney General’s efforts to address bullying in schools through policies and a new state law.
Maura oversaw the areas of consumer protection, environmental protection, health care, insurance and financial services, antitrust, Medicaid fraud, energy and telecommunications, not-for-profits and charities, fair labor, and business, technology and economic development. She also led the Attorney General’s efforts to assist military service members and veterans in partnership with state and local officials and supervised and oversaw implementation of a first-in-the-nation Home Corps program using funds obtained from the National Mortgage Settlement with the nation’s five largest banks to assist borrowers and families facing foreclosure.
Maura joined the Attorney General’s Office in 2007 after serving as a litigator in one of Boston’s most prominent law firms, WilmerHale, formerly Hale and Dorr, and as a Special Assistant District Attorney in Middlesex County.
Maura grew up the oldest of five brothers and sisters. Her mother worked as a school nurse, her father was a captain in the Navy and an engineer, and her stepfather taught history and coached high school sports. Her family roots are in Newburyport and along the North Shore, where her grandfathers worked on the fishing docks of Gloucester, at the post office, and in the General Electric factory.
From her parents and grandparents, Maura learned the value of hard work, discipline and an education, and, after graduating from public high school, left her small town to attend Harvard College. While there, she majored in government and captained the Harvard basketball team. After two years as a starting point guard for the UBBC Wustenrot Salzburg professional basketball team in Austria, Maura returned to Massachusetts to attend law school at Northeastern University School of Law.
Maura lives in Charlestown with her partner.
