Kathy Jo Cook is the founder and managing partner of KJC Law Firm. She represents people who have been injured and people and businesses that have suffered an economic loss. This includes individuals who have been injured in a car crash, on a construction site, or by a doctor, nurse or lawyer. This also includes individuals and businesses that have been harmed by another as a result of unfair business practices or discrimination in employment.
Kathy Jo grew up in Champaign, Illinois. Her dad was a plumber and her mom a legal secretary. She got married right out of high school, had two kids by the time she was 20, and embarked on her career as a hairdresser. Eleven years later, she had four kids, ran a successful Beauty School in Houston, Texas, and was on the National Board of Accreditation for Beauty Schools.
But that was not what she wanted. Kathy Jo had always wanted to be a lawyer so she could help people in need and make a difference in their lives. She set her mind to achieving that dream. She finished college by taking a double load and came to Boston for law school. At Suffolk Law School, Kathy Jo was a star. She won the national law student trial advocacy competition and three national writing competitions.
Kathy Jo began her legal career at Lubin & Meyer, P.C. during law school as a law clerk. She joined Keches & Mallen, P.C. thereafter, where she handled complex claims on behalf of injured plaintiffs for 13 years. Kathy Jo litigated the first successful claim in Massachusetts to hold that an insurance company’s meritless appeal of an injured worker’s verdict was a bad faith insurance practice and violated the Consumer Protection Statute, securing the original multi-million-dollar judgment and an additional multi-million-dollar punitive judgment against the insurance company for that practice.
In 2010, she prevailed in Law v. Griffith, 457 Mass. 349 (2010), a case which was deemed to be one of the most important decisions of the year and one which continues to aid plaintiffs seeking damages at trial for medical expenses. Kathy Jo was on the Steering Committee in the Columbia Gas cases, which obtained a settlement of $143 million for residents of the Merrimack Valley who suffered losses as a result of explosions there in 2018.
Kathy Jo’s outstanding abilities have been recognized by her peers and legal observers. In 1999, she was named by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly as one of the top five "up and coming" attorneys in Massachusetts, and in 2007, she became the third lawyer ever to be inducted into the Lawyers Weekly "Hall of Fame." In 2008, Kathy Jo was named as one of the Top 50 Women Lawyers in Massachusetts by Law & Politics Magazine (Best of Boston), and she has been named as a Super Lawyer by that same publication every year since. In 2016, she was recognized by Lawyers Weekly as one of the Top Women of the Law, and in 2021, she was inducted into the Circle of Excellence by that same publication.
More recently, she was named as a “Best Lawyer” and her firm named a “Best Law Firm” by Best Lawyers and U.S. New & World Report. Kathy Jo has also been rated as “AV Preeminent” by Martindale-Hubbell Law since 2006. This is the highest rating possible and is given only to lawyers who have very high to preeminent legal ability and who embrace very high professional standards. She has also been rated by Avvo as “Superb.”
In 2010, Kathy Jo was admitted to the American Board of Trial Advocates, a distinguished organization which is open by application only to those with significant trial experience, and she currently serves as secretary of the Massachusetts Chapter. She serves as the Massachusetts Chair of the Business Interruption Litigation Committee of the American Association for Justice. She is a former President of the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys and the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts, where she continues to serve in leadership. She has served in numerous capacities at the Massachusetts Bar Association, the Massachusetts Employment Lawyers Association, and the Boston Bar Association.
About her work Kathy Jo says, "My focus has always been on justice. To me justice means working to promote equality, to protect important civil rights, and to help individual people, workers and consumers when they are injured.”
Contact Info:
kjcook@kjclawfirm.com
(617) 720-8447