About Rachael
Family
Rachael had the amazing good fortune of being born into a large, multi-cultural family. Her parents met shortly after the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Loving v. Virginia, which invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage. At the time, her father had just returned from Vietnam where he served as a Navy Corpsman, and was living with his family on Ethel Street in Roslindale. Her mother was a nursing student at Boston University. They married and settled on Harlem Street in Dorchester. In 1969, Boston was not the same welcoming place it is for interracial couples as it is today. Her parents chose to start their family in Cambridge.
Rachael is the oldest of their five children and she has a 22-year-old daughter. She is also the guardian and has custody of her 17- and 13-year-old nieces. She is a licensed foster parent with the Department of Children and families and serves as both a Hotline and an Emergency home for children removed from their homes for abuse or neglect. Rachael is happiest when she is with her family or traveling.
Education
Rachael attended Buckingham Browne and Nichols and prior to graduating from high school in 1989, was selected onto an Elite New England School Girls Lacrosse Team. They won a National Championship and Rachael received a lacrosse scholarship to attend the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. At the end of her freshman year, three women’s sports teams were eliminated due to budget cuts. Not a single men’s team was impacted by the budget. With no legal background, she was instrumental (along with several other fabulous women) in organizing with lawyers to file a Title IX lawsuit. Ultimately, the University reinstated all of the women’s teams and that experience is what sparked her interest in the law. She captained the lacrosse team for the two years after it was reinstated.
Immediately after graduating in 1994, Rachael went to Northeastern University School of Law. While there, she served as the first legal intern in the history of the National Basketball Players Association and interned with United States District Court Judge Robert E. Keeton. After graduating in 1997, Rachael clerked for one year on the Massachusetts Appeals Court and then went to Georgetown University Law Center where she obtained a Masters in Law. While there, she worked for the National Football League Players Association.
Legal Experience
After graduating from Georgetown in 1999, Rachael came back to the Commonwealth to work as a Field Attorney at the National Labor Relations Board in Boston. The NLRB safeguards employees’ rights to organize and to determine whether to have unions as their collective bargaining representatives. There, she conducted elections, acted as a hearing officer, investigated unfair labor practices, and prosecuted violations of the National Labor Relations Act. Rachael fought for rights of workers, many of them poor, undocumented, people of color.
In 2002, Rachael left the NLRB to join the law firm of Bingham McCutchen. Over her four years at Bingham, she worked on first amendment, labor and employment, complex civil litigation, and criminal defense matters. She was hand selected to participate in a District Attorney rotation in Plymouth County at the Brockton District Court and learned a great deal working with the talented Assistant District Attorneys there.
In 2007, Rachael joined the United States Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts as an Assistant United States Attorney. As an AUSA, she prosecuted and defended a variety of cases ranging from fraud to employment discrimination, from forfeiture to sexual violence and child abuse (Adam Walsh), from gun trafficking and narcotics cases to assisting with public integrity matters.
Leadership Experience
In 2011, Rachael received a call asking her to join Governor Deval Patrick’s administration as the first person of color to serve as the General Counsel of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT). Six months later, the Board of Directors voted to have her also become the first female General Counsel of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA).
During my time at MassDOT and the MBTA, Rachael led and managed over 150 people including both legal departments, both audit departments, as well as an external audit function, the claims department, parts of both HR functions, labor functions and personally handled the high level negotiations for the conversion to All Electronic Tolling, the Office of Diversity and Civil Rights while overseeing multiple state and federal regulatory inquiries into ODCR and its practices. The inquiries focused on the lack of policies and procedures within ODCR and could have resulted in the loss of federal funding. Rachael was responsible for negotiating the resolution of each inquiry and implementing policies and procedures that made them compliant. Additionally, she oversaw and managed thousands of cases during that time. Finally, she worked closely with the Secretary of Transportation and the General Manager of the MBTA handling all of the legal work for the largest procurement in the history of the Commonwealth at the time (The Commuter Rail Procurement).
In 2013, Rachael was recruited to become the Chief Legal Counsel of the Massachusetts Port Authority. While at Massport, she reported directly to CEO Tom Glynn and the Board of Directors. She worked to increase the minimum wage at Logan Airport well before the wage was raised in the Commonwealth and personally oversaw and led the 12+ month internal and external NTSB investigation into a plane crash that resulted in 7 deaths.
Rachael was accepted into and attended a 6+ month intense, change management and leadership program at Harvard Business School, where she focused her attention on incentivizing change when there is a monopoly (like in government).
Survival & Intention
After Rachael graduated from the program at HBS, she was ready to take on the world. Then, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. For the next 18+ months, Rachael underwent treatment and multiple surgeries. She is happy to report that she is completely healthy and cancer free now, but that diagnosis deeply impacted Rachael and her family’s life. Rachael realized that every day is a gift and she chose to work only on the things that matter most to her.
Suffolk County District Attorney (2019-2022)
In 2018, Rachael won an extremely competitive primary between 5 candidates, and in November, she went on to gain the support of more than 80% of Suffolk County. Through both of these elections, the people of Suffolk County resoundingly told the political establishment what they wanted out of the DA’s office.
As District Attorney from 2019-2022, Rachael stuck to her word and led a movement demanding smart-on-crime innovations that led our nation. Data, equity, and transparency were the core of the office’s mission. While implementing a community-led reform agenda backed by powerful evidence, Rachael collaborated closely with law enforcement and achieved a twenty year low in homicides that continues today. Her office reversed 400+ years of wrongful convictions. We learned What a Difference a DA Makes.
Since then…
In late-2021, Rachael was appointed U.S. Attorney for the State of Massachusetts by then-President Joe Biden. She weighed whether to accept the appointment and what ultimately led to her leaving the DA’s Office for the new role were the assurances she was given that all of the nation-leading, community-informed work she and her team had put into motion over the past three years would continue.
However, that promise was broken on day one. When Rachael left the DA’s Office in 2022 to become U.S. Attorney, she never could have imagined that her unelected successor would destroy the public-private partnerships her office built, the data they collected and published, and the programming and access they granted to the people of Suffolk County. But that is exactly what happened. We deserve better.
Rachael resigned from the U.S. Attorney role in 2023. Through today, Rachael has worked at Roxbury Community College creating and now running a grant-funded Reentry program for people impacted by incarceration. The program is open to current and prospective academic and workforce development students as well as system-involved and formerly incarcerated community members committed to self-improvement and mental and physical well-being. Rachael also teaches Civics, Government & The Law to youth in BPS schools, at DYS in the Murder Unit, and to emerging adults in the PEACE Unit at the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department.
Running Again!
Rachael is running for Suffolk County District Attorney again to revive and finish the critical community-informed work her office started.
The current Suffolk County DA’s office does not publish meaningful written policies, conducts secret, invite-only meetings about murders in our community, and hasunnecessarily strained relationships with law enforcement partners. Inexplicably, the office abandoned crucial partnerships with some of the nation’s leading data scientists, academic institutions, technical assistance providers, and funders. This is unacceptable.
8 years later, Rachael’s priorities and constituencies remain the same: communities that come into the most contact with law enforcement and have the most shootings, homicides, and violent crimes. Poor, Black and brown communities. Communities with people that understand disparities within the criminal legal system. And even members of law enforcement who know that while Rachael can be tough, she is fair and transparent.