a l u mn i p r o f i l e
Kate Sievert Cook ’02 Kate Sievert Cook, ’02, chose to be an attorney when she was 12. Well, she had to: At that age, her Air Force officer father summoned her and informed her that she had a week to decide what her life’s profession would be. She considered accounting: “Boring — no offense to any accountant,” Cook says. Medicine: “I didn’t like the idea of working around blood.” Or the law: “I believe ‘L.A. Law’ might have had something to do with the decision,” she admits. “My father responded that I had made a suitable selection.” Growing up in a military family, Cook was born in the Midwest, but moved every three or four years to destinations including Alaska and Germany. Though the people and environments changed, she recalls, human behavior remained predictable. “Most people behave, and misbehave, in very predictable ways,” she says. “It underscored to me at an early age the utility and necessity of having uniform rules to govern conduct.” Yes, that sounds like a lawyer in the making. At the University of the South, Cook graduated in three years with a major in Russian (legacy of taking advanced college-level courses while still a high school student). From there, her march to law school proceeded with taking the LSAT … which she convinced herself she’d flunked. Nope. Following a Woodruff Scholars weekend, Cook was offered a scholarship from Mercer — and from other schools. “But I felt that the faculty and staff at Mercer had done the best in communicating with me throughout the application and scholarship process, and in taking the time to provide me with advice and introductions to notable lawyers in Georgia (all with no commitment on my part).” After her first year at the Law School, she married graduating 3L Matt Cook and moved with him to Columbus, Ga., where he joined her now-current firm, Butler, Wooten & Fryhofer. “Mercer was wonderful in working with me to hold open my scholarship while I took a year’s sabbatical to have our first child,” she says. “I then resumed school and commuted daily between Macon and Columbus.” She calls Professor Hal Lewis’s Civil Procedure class the most influential, “It was at 8:30 in the morning, which meant I had to leave Columbus no later than 6:45 to make sure I was there on time, but it was certainly worth every drive.” A member of the Mercer Law Review (2000-2002), Cook clerked for Columbus-based Federal District Judge Clay D. Land, then joined Butler, Wooten & Fryhofer. She and her husband practiced there until January 2011, when an illness in Matt Cook’s family caused him to
Petty Cozart photo
well-suited to A ‘suitable’ choice
resign his partnership and move to northeast Georgia. Kate Cook remains Of Counsel with the firm, maintaining a plaintiff’s practice and working on consumer class actions. She telecommutes from their home near Gainesville, with visits back to Columbus as needed. She’s a member of the Junior League and the DAR, and a representative of the Law School on the board of Mercer’s National Alumni Association. Her main focus, though, is on her three children, Madeleine (12), Caroline (8) and Ethan (3). “Their schedules are more complicated than mine at this point.” “Mercer, in my opinion and the stated opinions of several of my partners (who are not Mercer grads), produces skilled lawyers who can actually practice law upon graduation,” Cook says. “Especially in these economic times, no one should be turning up their nose at the idea of a professional school that trains its students to practice within their field.”
Mercer Lawyer | Spring 2012
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