Drainage District Legal Counsel
Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner

Kelsey Cooke began her legal career after graduating from Michigan State University and the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. She worked for a boutique law firm in private practice for several years before starting her career with Oakland County.

Without any exposure to municipal law or drains, water quality and sewer infrastructure, Cooke dove into the job of Senior Attorney for the Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner's office. Over the past five years, she has been promoted to Drainage District Legal Counsel where she advises the leadership team at her office along with various drain board members.

Her legal work includes management of outside counsel on large class-action lawsuits to multi-million dollar construction project disputes to drafting contracts for operations of community water and sewer systems. Along the way, Cooke also began working on labor relations matters, policy initiatives of the office and has coordinated regional workgroups, worked in Lansing to draft specific bill language and testified before legislative committees in Lansing.

When not at work, she serves on the Village of Oxford's Planning Commission and is the Vice-Chair of the Oakland County Bar Association's Municipal Law Committee.

Cooke was selected to participate in the 16/50 Project, a Women's Municipal Leadership program sponsored by the Michigan Municipal League. This program recognizes that although women represent 50 percent of the population, only 16% of top-level municipal executive positions are held by women.

Cooke lives in Oxford and enjoys spending time with her family, including her husband Justin and three-year-old daughter Natalie. Justin, Kelsey and Natalie are expecting a new addition to their family (a baby boy) in mid-March 2020.

The information presented here was accurate as of January 1, 2020. Cooke started serving as President of the Village of Oxford in November 2020.