Carol Starkey, an accomplished trial lawyer with more than three and half decades of experience in white collar criminal defense and regulatory law, is the Co-Chair of Conn Kavanaugh’s White Collar and Regulatory Practice Group. She handles all stages of the process: conducting internal investigations, responding to state and federal grand jury subpoenas, knowing who to meet in state and federal prosecutors’ offices to defend companies and individuals from facing government scrutiny, criminal indictments or complaints, and handling complex jury trials and appeals.
Prior to joining the firm as a white collar defense attorney, Carol was a prosecutor for fourteen years, first as an Assistant District Attorney, and then as Chief of the Economic Crimes Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, where she concentrated in white collar crime and public corruption. There, she prosecuted hundreds of financial crime and public corruption cases, including some of the largest cases ever indicted on behalf of the Commonwealth. That experience now informs her defense work with first-hand knowledge about how the government prioritizes, handles, and resolves high stakes matters involving both individuals and corporations. Her deep background as a prosecutor and her current civil and criminal defense work give her perspective from all angles, whether she is conducting internal investigations for her clients, or preventing, mitigating, and defending against liability in all types of civil and criminal matters.
In addition to Carol’s wide range of experience handling complex matters before the federal and state trial courts throughout Massachusetts, she also served as a past President of the Boston Bar Association and its governing council for the 2016-2017 program year. Before her BBA Presidency, Carol served as the BBA’s President-Elect, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary, a member of the Council and Executive Committee, amongst holding other leadership positions for the BBA and BBF. Carol is a past Chair of the Joint Bar Committee on Judicial Appointments and the former Vice-Chair for the White Collar Defense and Investigations Committee for the International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC).
Recently, Carol was appointed by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to a five-year term on the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation (MLAC), and a three-year term to the IOLTA Committee. She is a current ABA House of Delegates Representative appointed by the Boston Bar Association. Carol has served on several Legislative Commissions, most recently as a Commissioner on the Legislative Commission to Study of Civil Asset Forfeiture laws where she has testified before the state legislature. Finally, Carol has served on the Board of Editors of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly since 2019.
Carol has been selected for inclusion in the 2016–2025 editions of Best Lawyers in America® and has been recognized as one of the Top Lawyers in New England for white-collar defense, as one of the top Fifty Women Lawyers in Massachusetts, and as a “Massachusetts SuperLawyer”—as published by Law & Politics, Boston Magazine, and Thomson Reuters—every year since its inception in 2004. Carol has also received an AV Peer Review Rating–the highest rating–in the Martindale-Hubbell Lawyers Directory. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder and Suffolk University Law School.
