Martha M. Coakley, Class of 1975

Beginning with your role with the Department of Justice Organized Crime Strike Force, then as Assistant District Attorney, and now District Attorney for Middlesex County, you have, as the Boston Herald has rightly claimed “been on the front lines of the battle against domestic violence and a host of criminal justice issues.” The Child Abuse Prosecution Unit that you led became a national model as it pursued each year more than eight hundred cases, some of them high profile but many of them equally important but unnoticed except by their victims, for whom, a col­league attests, you hold “enormous empathy.” Your work is also nationally known for its creativity, using community-based systems to prevent abuse, and showing that prosecutors have important roles to play as activists omside the court system. You have served on the Children’s Justice Act Task Force and helped create both the Child Fatality Review Board and the Physical Child Abuse Task Force. More recently you have used the pmver of your new position to focus attention on the challenges of elder abuse. You are cited as a powerful speaker on these important issues in forums across the country. The coalition for Victims of Violent Crime has described you “as known for [your] doggedness, patience, and …willingness to work a case for years, if necessary, to obtain a conviction.” What is clear is that the harm done to vulnerable individuals, young and old, in Middlesex County and nation­-wide, has been reduced by your good efforts, for which all of us in your native north Berkshire are understandably  proud.