About Marty

For three terms, Marty has served the residents of the 8th Suffolk District in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. The district includes the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and the West End in Boston and Cambridgeport, Area 4 and MIT/Kendall Square in Cambridge.

She currently serves as House Chair of the Joint Committee on Education and on the Federal Stimulus Oversight Committee. She also serves on the Executive Committee of the Caucus of Women Legislators. Marty was Co-Chair of the Caucus during the 2007-2008 legislative session. Marty is a member of the Early Education and Care Advisory Council, the purpose of which is to advise the Department of Early Education and Care on how to achieve its mission of providing early education and care and after-school services for families. Previously, Marty was the Vice Chair of the House Ethics Committee and a member of the Education, Judiciary, Housing, Transportation, and Labor & Workforce Development Committees.

Marty is an attorney in private practice. She advises clients on the full range of laws governing the relationship between employers and their workers, and has a particular focus on preventing illegal discrimination and harassment in the workplace. She has previously worked at the national employment law firm of Littler Mendelson. She has also worked for Harcourt General, Inc., where she managed the company’s global labor and employment law practice, and for Palmer & Dodge. Using her labor and employment law expertise, Marty has also served as Boston Public Schools’ Assistant Director of Human Resources.

Prior to her election as State Representative, Marty was the Vice President of Development at Jumpstart for Young Children, a national nonprofit based in Boston that pairs college students with preschool children who are at risk of entering school unprepared for success.

Marty has served in leadership roles with the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay and the Women’s Lunch Place, a daytime shelter for poor and homeless women. She also served on the Board of NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts for six years. Marty serves on the Advisory Board of Emerge Massachusetts, a political leadership training program for Democratic women. She is a member of the Charles River Water Quality Commission, the goal of which is to determine the feasibility of making the Charles River swimmable again. She is also a longtime member of the Boston Ward 5 Democratic Committee, which she has served as Chair and as Treasurer.

Currently, Marty is an adjunct professor at Emerson College in the Communication Studies Department and at Northeastern University in the Political Science Department. Recently named “Legislator of the Year” by Advocates for Autism of Massachusetts, Marty also received an “Outstanding Public Service” award from the Community Dispute Settlement Center.

Marty holds a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where she was a Kennedy Fellow and a Lucius N. Littaur Fellow. Marty also has a J.D. from New York University School of Law and a B.A. from Colgate University, from which she graduated magna cum laude and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa.