Kathleen “Kate” Mahan’s lifelong interest in getting to the bottom of the facts has guided everything from her choice of career to her approach as president of the New Hampshire Bar Association.
The Manchester native, whose term as NHBA president ended in June, credits her interest in the law to being the child of a career police officer. Her father spent years as a Manchester detective, and “I was always super interested in the investigative part of it, getting all of these pieces of information from all sources and trying to put it together to make it all make sense,” she says.
After graduating from Saint Anselm College, she went straight to Suffolk University Law School.
“I knew what I wanted to do, and I didn’t want to skip a beat,” she explains.
While in college, she did an internship with the Rockingham County Attorney’s Office, where her superiors urged her to get more courtroom experience by becoming a law clerk. After law school, she did just that, clerking in both the New Hampshire Superior and Supreme Courts for a total of four years.
“It was one of the most important things I did,” Mahan says. “It was incredibly interesting to me to sit on the other side and watch lawyers do their thing and have the benefit of talking to the judge after, and getting to hear why the judge came out the way he or she did. It gave me time to hone those analytical and writing skills, and it’s one of the things I encourage every young lawyer to do – be a law clerk.”
She went on to join the firm then called Cook, Little, Rosenblatt & Manson for 13 years, and in 2022 joined Hinckley Allen, where she is now a partner.
Known for her work as a business litigator, she advises both plaintiffs and defendants in business matters ranging from organizational restructuring to property disputes to trade secret protections.
Mahan says she particularly enjoys the trade secrets work, “where I have to become a subject matter expert in something I had never heard about before, like Greek yogurt production or a type of polymer.”
One of her most memorable cases was Vention Medical Advanced Components Inc. v. Pappas, in which a former employee was accused of misappropriating trade secrets. Mahan represented Vention, and “successfully demonstrated our cause of action” in both the trial and Supreme courts, establishing a new precedent in trade secrets.
Another successful case was Short v. Laplante, a property dispute that Mahan describes as “the first case I really did start to finish on my own,” including an appeal to the Supreme Court.
“It was an incredibly emotional case because it involved my client’s home,” she says, “but it was also a great experience for me to lead this trial.”
Her work has earned the respect of colleagues like Arnold Rosenblatt, who has known her since they first worked together in 2009 and who is also now a partner at Hinckley Allen.
“She’s smart, she’s able, she takes on responsibility, and she remains pretty unflappable during it all,” Rosenblatt says. “She’s a great lawyer and a decent person. That’s a nice combination.”
Retired New Hampshire Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Gary Hicks has known Mahan “since she was a young girl” and says “she was impressive then and she remains so today. She is a great lawyer and a great person.”
Attorney Russell Hilliard has also known Mahan since her early days as a lawyer, served with her for a few years in the American Bar Association House of Delegates, and remains impressed with both her professional skills and her dedication to the Bar.
“Her measured and thorough approach to litigation and the often-contentious issues impressed me from the start,” he says. “Her commitment to advancing our profession through the organized Bar has continued, culminating in her NHBA presidency. She exemplifies what it means to be a New Hampshire lawyer in all our best traditions.”
Mahan says her litigation experience “absolutely” informed her work as president of the New Hampshire Bar.
“I think it is important to hear a variety of opinions and be able to figure out what the most salient facts are,” she says. “Leading an organization like that, you need to be decisive, and I certainly tried to do that. You need to be able to get to the heart of the issue, bring it to the forefront, and remain open to varying perspectives. And to the extent there is a disagreement, you should be able to explain your views while also hearing people out.”
Mahan says one of her proudest moments as president was “shining a light on pro bono opportunities” so they can be framed as meaningful opportunities, not burdensome obligations. Another was the establishment of a committee on the public sector and public interest, so that attorneys in those fields get as much attention as those in private practice.
“I just want to make sure everybody has a voice,” she says. “I think we need to do more to make sure the Bar is doing everything it can to meet the needs of all its members.”
She has made multiple other contributions to the Bar and several of its statewide committees. She was appointed to the Federal Court Advisory Committee for the District of New Hampshire and is a trustee of the New Hampshire Supreme Court Society.
She is on the board of directors of the New Hampshire Bar Foundation and the New England Bar Association and is active in the New Hampshire Women’s Bar Association.
Apart from her Bar work, Mahan is active with the local food pantry in Bedford, where she lives.
While claiming to be “an introvert at heart” who just likes to curl up with a book, Mahan also confesses to being “obsessed” with Formula 1 racing – an interest she developed during the long, stay-at-home, TV-watching days of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a parting gift when she stepped down as president of the Bar, she was presented with a “Ferrari driving experience,” which she hopes to enjoy soon.
Mahan also enjoys traveling with her husband, Colin, and teen daughters, Meagan and Emily.
She says she remains “incredibly honored” to have been selected as president of the Bar.
“To have the members put trust in me to lead the organization was incredibly meaningful, a wonderful experience,” she says. “I hope that I did a good job.”
