Thomas Carey ’65 has a long list of achievements as lawyer, teacher, and appellate advocate. Add to that a mind like a steel trap (he forgets nothing), a BC Law JD and a Harvard LLM, and native talent as an educator and you get the man who was honored May 25 with the Massachusetts Bar Association’s President’s Award.
At the MBA’s virtual annual meeting, Carey took his place among several other honorees: MBA Legislator of the Year Congresswoman Katherine Clark, MBA Gold Medalist Marsha V. Kazarosian, and two special Access to Justice awardees. The MBA also posthumously honored Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants with its Chief Justice Edward F. Hennessey Award. Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Kimberly S. Budd delivered the keynote.
The MBA’s President’s Award is bestowed upon those individuals who, like Carey, have made a significant contribution to the work of the MBA, to the preservation of MBA values, to the success of MBA initiatives, and to the promotion of the MBA leadership role within the legal community of Massachusetts.
Upon learning that Carey—who has been active at Boston College Law School on and off for 50 years and currently teaches the Amicus Brief Clinic and coaches the national moot court team—was being honored, colleagues applauded.
“Year after year you are a tireless and omnicompetent mentor to our advocacy teams,” Professor Zygmunt Plater said in a note to Carey. “It’s great that the MBA is recognizing your achievements and abilities.”
Those abilities include “being acquainted with issues arising out of virtually every possible sector of commerce and industry, successfully briefing and arguing cases on appeal to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the Massachusetts Appeals Court, and the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit,” according to the Boston firm where he practices law, Hogan Lovells.
In presenting the President’s Award, MBA Vice President Thomas Bond noted that Carey also consults with trial attorneys on litigation strategy, legal memoranda, and dispositive motions in trial courts and administrative proceedings. He lauded Carey’s strong voice on issues of importance to the legal community and the general public. “In recent years, [Carey] has served as lead or co-author on several MBA amicus briefs filed in support of judicial independence and access to justice,” Bond said.
Carey has also had an impact on the MBA. He is the founding chair and current co-chair of the MBA’s Appellate Bench-Bar Committee and chair of the Amicus Curiae Committee, a member of the Massachusetts Law Review Editorial Board, and a Brandeis Life Fellow of the Massachusetts Bar Foundation, among various other roles in MBA member groups.
Retired Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Justice Geraldine Hines, currently a visiting professor at BC Law, spoke from experience when she wrote in an email to Carey, “I have first-hand knowledge of the power of your advocacy on important issues before our court. So this honor is richly deserved and long overdue.”
Photograph by Vicki Sanders