“I don’t have too many plaques up on my wall,” says Karen Spilka, “but the one I do have that I see every day reads ‘Justice, justice, justice thou shalt pursue.’”
Spilka’s commitment to justice in all its forms was shaped in childhood. Her grand- father, an activist for reform in czarist Russia, awoke one day to the horror of his best friend hanging in the village square and, knowing he was next, fled to America. From him, she learned the gifts that immigrants bring to our shores and the importance of helping them become productive and self-sufficient. She draws strength in her unending fight for people with disabilities from the memory of her late sister who had Down syndrome, whom she cared for as legal guardian. She traces her devotion to mental health reform to her father, a World War II veteran haunted by mental illness. He died when she was just 20.

“I honestly don’t know, if I hadn’t lived in that family with my father and sister and all that we went through, if I would be a state senator now, let alone Senate president,” she says.

Spilka’s legislative achievements are many. Notably, she was the driving force behind the 2019 Student Opportunity Act, which ensures $2 billion in additional public-school funding primarily benefiting underserved students, and the sweeping 2022 Mental Health Addressing Barriers to Care Act that enforces mental health parity and also focuses on emergency-room boarding, suicide prevention, school services and so much more.

I try to listen. I think that’s one of the most important skills of being a Senate president.

— Karen Spilka ’80

Fostering change through legislation is an art. “I believe that my background in social work and in conflict resolution and my legal education at Northeastern helped hone the skills that have guided me as a reformer,” she says. “My style of leadership is including people, bringing them in.” That takes time, but Spilka insists it’s worth it. “To have people have their own input — somebody plants a little seed and then another person takes that and lets it grow — you come out in the long run with a much better product. It’s richer, more inclusive and fuller; you have more input and buy-in, and it is usually more successful.”

“I try to listen,” she says. “I think that’s one of the most important skills of being a Senate president.”

Kyana Givens was a first-year law student when she learned about the foster-care-to-prison pipeline. Appalled, she turned to her roommates — one an occupational therapist, the other a teacher — and told them, “We need to do something, and we need to do something now.” The three women, all in their twenties, became foster parents. “We became a harbor for teenagers,” she says. “They were what they labeled back then as chronic runners, and they would come to our house and never run away.” She has since served as a foster parent in every state where she has lived. The experience has influenced her nearly two-decade career as a public defender: “It has made me think about the ways social service, mental health, medical and criminal justice systems are all interlocked,” says Givens, who was appointed last year to head the head the Federal Public Defender Office covering Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. “I come to the stories of my clients and the stories of their lives very differ- ently because I have an intimate understanding of some of the roads they have traveled before they get me as their lawyer.”

… I have an intimate understanding of some of the roads they have traveled before they get me as their lawyer.

— Kyana Givens ’02

Public defenders carry out the Sixth Amendment imperative that even those who can’t afford a lawyer are entitled to legal representation in criminal prose- cutions. “We’re the only profession that is named in the Constitution,” Givens notes. “As public defenders, we’re assigned our clients. We don’t select them, and they don’t select us.” That’s why she didn’t blink an eye when she, a Black woman, wound up repre- senting a January 6th defendant considered to be a white supremacist. “I think that’s a good example of when a public defender is being their best to carry out the mission,” she says.

Yet, “I would be remiss not to talk about race,” Givens says. “I think to be a Black woman in this work, where most of my clients are predominantly Black, my presence alone can often feel like a salve to families.” Even at the most awful moments, such as when her young client has been sentenced to prison, the grandmother or the father will pull her aside. “They’ll say, ‘We’re so proud of you. We’re so glad we got you. We’re so glad we have met you,’” she says. “That’s what me bringing my full self as a Black woman to the work does as well.”

As Suffolk County’s first woman district attorney and first woman of color to serve as a Massachusetts DA, Rachael Rollins famously issued a list of
15 offenses her office would have a rebuttable presumption to decline, divert or dismiss.

Instead, her office focused on violent, serious crimes, not nonviolent misdemeanors whose aggressive prosecution has been shown to increase recidivism. Now, however, as the first Black woman to lead the Massachusetts US Attorney’s Office, she has no such list. Her priorities conform to those of the Department of Justice. Nevertheless, as she manages a staff of 300, including some 125 prosecutors, Rollins has plenty of room to advance her philosophy of law enforcement.

Take hiring. “I inherited a criminal unit of assistant United States attorneys, over 90 of them,” she says. None was Black. There were no Black or Latina women prose- cutors at all. She has recently hired 12 assistant US attorneys, including four people of color. More than half have been criminal defense attorneys.

Every decision we make deeply impacts people’s lives. As the government, we have to get it right.

— Rachael Rollins ’97

Another change: “For the first time in the history of our office, I mandated that we, the US Attorney’s Office, leave the Moakley Courthouse and go into the communities impacted by our decisions,” she says. She implemented mandatory carceral visits for every attorney. Together with federal and state law enforcement partners, her attorneys have also visited communities impacted by gun violence. She organized visits to the Massachusetts State Police, the Boston Police Department and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s police department and courtroom. These visits, she believes, have improved her office’s rela- tionships with law enforcement at every level.

As her prosecutors fight violent crimes, the opioid crisis, healthcare fraud, economic crimes, human trafficking, instances of police misconduct, and violent hate crimes, Rollins insists that their professional devel- opment connects to a deeper purpose. For example: “How does this training help us understand what an agent, the family and the neighborhood experience when the no-knock warrant is executed and a 91-year-old grand- mother or 7-year-old child is inside the dwelling?” she says. “Every decision we make deeply impacts people’s lives. As the government, we have to get it right. And in the times that we don’t, we cannot be silent. We must speak about what happened and work on rebuilding trust with the impacted individual or community.”

Elected in 2014 as the first openly gay state attorney general in the country and re-elected by Massachusetts voters in 2018, Maura Healey sued the Trump administration over the Muslim travel ban, family separation at the border, attempts to delay or roll back environ- mental regulations and nearly 100 other offenses. She has won billions of dollars in settlements against perpetrators of the opioid crisis, including Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Allergan, Walmart and Johnson & Johnson. She sued Exxon Mobil for lying about climate change, and she’s won multi-million-dollar settlements against predatory lenders.

As she begins her term as the first woman and first gay person ever elected governor of Massachusetts, and as one of the first two openly lesbian governors in the United States (the other is Tina Kotek of Oregon), Healey says, “I think about what this means for young girls across the country who finally see more leaders who look like them. I hope our victories show them that their potential is limitless.”

“Representation matters,” she says. “When we have more people in leadership positions who reflect the people we serve, we get better policies, better laws and better work done.”

Acknowledging the leadership of Federal Public Defender Givens, Massachusetts Senate President Spilka and US Attorney for Massachusetts Rollins, Healey says, “It’s because of Northeastern’s commitment to public service that so many graduates are serving in important leadership positions, and I’m honored to be one of them.”

When we have more people in leadership positions who reflect the people we serve, we get better policies …

— Maura Healey ’98

Healey says that Northeastern is where she learned how to use the law to drive progress. She’ll be applying those lessons and everything
she’s learned since to address the many intrac- table challenges facing the commonwealth — like the lack of affordable housing, childcare and elder care; a mass transit system in disarray; social and economic inequality; climate protection and resilience; healthcare and behavioral healthcare; and reform of the criminal legal system. She’s smart enough to know she can’t do it alone: “We’re building an administration for everyone,” she says, “and I’m excited to work alongside policy experts, community advocates and government partners from all regions of the state with diverse backgrounds. Together, we will make Massachusetts more affordable, increase our housing supply, make transportation more safe and reliable, expand job training across the state and so much more.”