For her work as a judge and for mental health, in 2023 Cooksey was named to the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame.

[1] In 1998, Cooksey led a nationally-recognized truancy program intervention targeting chronically absent teenagers at Baltimore's Canton Middle School.

[1] She highlighted that American jails had become the largest de facto mental hospitals in the United States, and sought to find a solution.

[10] Cooksey further advocated on behalf of the incarcerated, acting as a whistleblower and speaking out about inhumane conditions in Maryland's jails during a severe heatwave.

[11] Later, she worked with former judge Ellen M. Heller to establish Tamar's Children, a program for incarcerated prisoners who were pregnant.