The next act is set to begin for Martha Coakley, the former attorney general and Democratic gubernatorial candidate who soon will enter the world of corporate law.
Coakley will join the international law firm Foley Hoag on Tuesday, focusing on white collar crime, regulatory, and defense work with companies whose industries are scrutinized by federal and state government.
"All of those things that I've been able to do, to be on the cutting edge of new laws and regulation, to be able to get to still practice law at that high level, that's really what draws me to practice here," Coakley said recently from her new employer's conference room overlooking the South Boston seaport.
Last year, Coakley came within 41,000 votes of being governor of Massachusetts, losing her second statewide election in five years. And with no plans to go back into public life, Coakley, who spent 16 years as the state's top prosecutor and Middlesex district attorney, said she is ready to begin what she calls "new chapters" in her life.
In the weeks since her tenure as attorney general ended, Coakley served as a fellow with Harvard University's Institute of Politics and chief legal analyst for WCVB-TV.
Coakley said both gigs were steppingstones to help her figure out the next chapter of her life, and she has found it at Foley Hoag, a firm that she says felt right, in part, because of the people she knows and respect who work there.
Coakley's 2010 US Senate campaign manager and former deputy attorney general, Kevin Conroy , works at the law firm, as does Martin Murphy, who worked with Coakley in the district attorney's office. And Michael Keating, a partner with the firm, has taught Williams College students with Coakley for years.
"A number of our partners in the firm came to us and said that Martha would be a great addition to our team, and we're delighted it's worked out," said Adam Kahn, one of Foley Hoag's co-managing partners.
Kahn said Coakley's expertise will boost the firm's practice in the health care, energy, finance, data privacy, and security industries.
"I'm not sure there's anyone really in the Commonwealth who has been in charge of more important investigations over the last, really, 20 years than Martha Coakley," he said.
William Kolb, another managing partner, said the word most-often associated with Coakley is "respect."
"Martha is so well respected, certainly by the people who have worked with her over the years but even by the people who have seen her work from a little bit of a distance," he said.
Money, she said, was not the deciding factor, although she acknowledged she will earn quite a bit more than the approximately $130,000 a year she did in public office. Just how much more she declined to say. "I have been in the public sector for a long time. My husband retired from the public sector. We basically have a pretty straight forward, simple lifestyle," she said. "So to me it's more about the quality of the work, the engagement of the work, the place where I can have an impact, the place where I can be challenged."
She added that her new role does not automatically put her on the opposite side of the table she sat at for years as a public official.
"It's [not] like one side or the other," she said. "What happens in most of these, either inquiries or investigations, is sometimes they start out as discussions. It's not a winner-take-all or black or white."
Akilah Johnson can be reached at ajohnson@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @akjohnson1922.