Mary Kay Holthus was born in Syracuse, New York in 1961. She grew up in upstate New York and attended State University of New York at Binghamton. She worked as a summer law clerk at Rawlings, Olson & Cannon in Las Vegas, where she concentrated on insurance defense issues. She put herself through college and law school, waiting tables and tending bar. In 1989, she moved to Las Vegas with her mother and her sister. She passed the bar exam in 1989, and began work as an associate at Jones, Jones, Cl ...