Kathleen O’Brien KCPAO Women in Leadership
This Women’s History Month, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is highlighting some of the depth and breadth of women leaders in our office as part of our “Women in Leadership” series. These profiles are only a few of the many amazing women in our office.
How long have you worked at the PAO?
32 years.
What is your role at the PAO?
I am currently the Chief Deputy of the Family Support Division. I often say that I grew up in this office as I have spent my entire professional life working for the PAO. I was hired as a receptionist in the Family Support Division shortly after college. I returned to the PAO seeking a job after graduating from the University of Puget Sound School of Law (now Seattle University Law School) in 1988. I was hired as a deputy in the Family Support Division, and I never left! Your caseload as a Family Support Deputy, is made up of hundreds of families each with unique and complicated family dynamics. As a parentage deputy, which is where I spent the vast majority of my years in the office prior to becoming chief, I recognized that I had an opportunity to make positive changes in the lives of the families that were on my caseload and I was energized and passionate about doing so.
How have you seen the work of the Family Support Division change?
The substantive work of the division has not changed dramatically over the years but our approach and our philosophy to our work — our “why”…if you will — has changed dramatically. And for the better I might add! Our approach to collecting child support and setting child support obligations today is hands-on and holistic. We expend a lot of time and energy on the front end of our cases working with parents and their individual circumstances in order to enter child support obligations and judgments that make sense and accurately reflect a person’s true ability to pay child support. No longer are we setting support obligations in a vacuum without considering the actual circumstances of the paying parent. As we move forward from the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, a holistic approach to our work is imperative. So many of the families on our caseloads were living on the margins and struggling financially before the pandemic. And now it is only worse for these families.
All Family Support Division business, be it internal amongst ourselves or external with our customers and our community partners, is done with an Equity and Social Justice lens. Dan Satterberg’s leadership and vision in this arena has been instrumental in redirecting and refocusing how we conduct our business in the Family Support Division. Incorporating an equity lens into all facets of our work has been empowering for the Family Support Division. I am humbled and honored to engage in this important work with my dear friends and colleagues that are doing this work all across the PAO.
What advice would you give to other women who are considering a similar career path?
At the end of the day it’s the people I work with that make all the difference. I have so much trust and respect for the people that make up this office. My PAO colleagues are my second family. Together we’ve been through thick and thin over the years. Find an organization or an office that aligns with your core values and your priorities, and the rest will take care of itself.
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Catch up with the entire KCPAO Women in Leadership series on our blog at kcprosecutor.medium.com.
