Rose Connors grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Mount St. Mary's University in Maryland with a degree in American history in 1978 and received her law degree from Duke University School of Law in 1984. A trial attorney for more than two decades, she is admitted to practice in both Washington State and Massachusetts. She is the creator of 'Martha "Marty" Nickerson', an attorney in Chatham on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.