La Tasha Buckner: a woman of firsts in Kentucky government
- Alexandria Landgraf
- 10 hours ago
- 6 min read
The sound of construction echoed through the halls of the Kentucky State Capitol as La Tasha Buckner sat at her desk, surrounded by boxes.
The scene felt both chaotic and symbolic, a reminder of the constant motion that defines her life at the heart of state government. In the midst of it all, Buckner spoke calmly and with purpose, reflecting on the unlikely path that brought her to one of the most powerful positions in Kentucky.
“I would say I would describe it as pretty serendipitous,” Buckner said. “I could not have planned my life to be here. I didn’t even know that where I’m currently working existed and a job like this existed.”
Buckner serves as chief of staff for Gov. Andy Beshear and senior counsel, a position that puts her at the center of policy, law and crisis management.
Originally a psychology major at the University of Kentucky, Buckner had her sights set on being a psychologist. However, during a year off for the graduate record examination, she began working for an attorney. This turned her interests towards the FBI and led her to pursue law school instead.
She began with an internship at the FBI headquarters in Washington D.C., through the Honors Internship Program at the J. Edgar Hoover Building, an experience that initially thrilled her. But a hiring freeze shifted her plans.
Around the same time, she met her future husband, got married and had two children and realized the FBI wasn’t the right fit. So, after law school, she unexpectedly moved into prosecution work in Kentucky.
Buckner said she felt a bit like “Goldilocks,” as in, one county was overwhelming with heavy caseloads, while another felt too quiet.
Her search for the right fit led her to Frankfort, where she worked at the labor cabinet and eventually discovered a passion for employment law.
“I didn’t know anything about employment law and really enjoyed it,” Buckner said. “That’s where you go in and someone may sue the cabinet or allege that they were mistreated, and you have to look at the case and decide, OK, did management do something wrong and we need to make it better? Or did it not really happen and you have to protect the cabinet?”
Her skill and persistence drew notice, and soon she was serving as General Counsel for the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and the Department of Charitable Gaming. The role expanded into Deputy Executive Director for the Office of Legal Services at the Public Protection Cabinet, where she was managing as many as 40 attorneys.
When Andy Beshear was elected attorney general in 2015, Buckner joined his team as assistant deputy attorney general for the civil division. While there, she argued some of the most notable cases in Kentucky history, including issues related to pension reform and budget cuts to the state’s public universities.
“When it came time that the governor ran and won being governor, he asked me to be his general counsel, which was very flattering and very cool but not totally unexpected,” Buckner said. “And then he wasn’t finding the right fit for a chief of staff, so he asked me to do that as well. I became the first person to hold both of those positions at the same time, because either one of them is more than enough.”
Buckner is the first African American and the first woman to serve as chief of staff for the governor of Kentucky and the first African American woman to serve as general counsel for the governor’s office.
“I just kept hearing from other people, ‘There’s no way she can do it. No one can do both of those things,’” Buckner said. “And it just absolutely pumped me up to make sure that I could. And I did do it — for 10 months during COVID.”
She took on constitutional battles, environmental cases and lawsuits that shaped state policy. One of the most defining came during the COVID-19 pandemic, when she successfully argued before the Kentucky Supreme Court to uphold the governor’s emergency powers.
“I went in and argued and won that case in front of the Kentucky Supreme Court — seven and zero,” Buckner said. “That was an awesome time because at that point having those restrictions in place absolutely saved lives… That was a defining moment in my legal career for sure.”
But ultimately, she knew she needed to choose one position.
“For me the thing that made me want to switch to one job was really not the work,” Buckner said. ”It was feeling like I was letting down my legal team because I couldn’t be there with them as much.”
Deciding on chief of staff, Buckner has been on the front lines of some of Kentucky’s toughest emergencies. She’s spent countless hours in the state’s emergency operations center, responding quickly to disasters like the tornadoes in western Kentucky — arriving within 30 minutes of the first reports — and the floods in eastern Kentucky — showing up as soon as the waters receded and most rescues were complete.
“I learned I could stay up for about 38 hours straight,” Buckner said. “Knowing that we are having a frontline response…to make sure people are safe and getting the resources that they need — those things are more sad to be involved in but also a privilege to be involved in and try to help.”
Her work is often defined by crisis and high-stakes decision-making, but her identity and perspective are also shaped by her background. Growing up in the small town of Glasgow, Kentucky, Buckner recognized that her presence in future professional spaces as a black woman would be rare.
“Obviously I’m aware that there aren’t as many people who look like me in the places I’ve found myself,” Buckner said. “But for me, that was more of a motivation to make sure I always did really well in those spaces.”
The values Buckner learned at home, from her mother, who is deeply committed to volunteering, and her father, who worked in public service and modeled a life dedicated to helping others, have been a steady compass throughout her career.
“My mom’s thing was always, ‘If you’re on time, you’re late.’ And that’s something that’s been instilled with me — so I’m always early and ready to go unless there’s a really good reason not to be,” Buckner said.
Beyond her family, Buckner credits mentors with shaping her approach to law, leadership and resilience. One of her earliest influences was Phil Patton, who hired her as a secretary during a gap year between undergraduate and graduate school.
“The best part is I couldn’t type because I hadn’t taken keyboarding, and my handwriting was also really bad,” Buckner said. “I was literally the worst secretary somebody could have. But he let me start going to court with him in one of the counties he prosecuted, and seeing what it takes to build a case was really, really interesting.”
That experience, coupled with Patton having attended UK law, inspired Buckner to apply to the University of Kentucky for law school, a path she might not have considered otherwise. The exposure to court and responsibility beyond typical secretarial work gave her an early understanding of the legal process and set the stage for her future career in law and state government.
Bob Vance, former secretary of the public protection cabinet, also played a pivotal role in connecting Buckner with opportunities that would shape her career.
“He was the person who asked me when he left from being cabinet secretary what I wanted to do, and I said, ‘If Andy Beshear becomes attorney general, I’d love to work for him.’ And he introduced us,” Buckner said. ”That was really, that's a turning point, because otherwise I didn’t know the governor.”
A more recent key mentor was J. Michael Brown, who Buckner met at the office of the attorney general. He was the number two to Andy Beshear as attorney general, who Buckner described as a magnificent person that she went to for “a lot of guidance, a lot of wisdom and he had a lot of humor.”
But beyond her professional life, Buckner has created a sense of balance between family, friends and personal well-being that also shapes how she defines achievement.
“I have to say that I have been consistent about what success is to me. Success is feeling happy about where you are, which doesn’t mean every day is great or easy, but it means that I feel like I am working at my best level and I’m doing things that matter to me,” Buckner said. “So that’s always guided how I’ve chosen my career. I’ve never chased money — I’ve chased something that I thought I could make a difference in but also feel that I am being engaged.”
Buckner’s career has been defined by adaptability, a values-driven approach and a willingness to seize opportunities as they come. She has built a path not by clinging to rigid titles or expectations, but by focusing on what she enjoys, learning from every role and committing to doing what’s right. That openness has allowed her to serve Kentuckians and leave her mark on state government.
“We do so much every single day — and they all feel like small, good wins. You take them off and then you don’t even think about them again,” Buckner said. “I know there was something this week where I thought, ‘Oh, this is why I do this job.’ And it’s totally gone — because there’s just something else to do.”
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