Attorney Carey holds an LLM degree from Harvard Law School and received his JD degree from Boston College Law School, together with several academic awards. His distinguished legal career includes federal judicial clerkships, a decade as a full-time law teacher at Suffolk and Boston College Law schools, government service as the Appellate Attorney of the Major Violators Division in the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, and private practice as a solo practitioner and as an appellate attorney affiliated previously with the law firms Dwyer & Collora, Collora, and the Boston office of Hogan Lovells. Tom has also been on the Adjunct Faculty at Boston College Law School teaching courses in Appellate Advocacy and working with various moot court teams and advocacy programs since 1990. A detailed Curriculum Vitae is available.

Tom was admitted to practice as an Attorney and Counsellor at Law in any of the Courts of the Commonwealth by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts on November 9,1965. He is also admitted to practice in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and the Supreme Court of the United States.

Bar Association Memberships and Activities

Tom is a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association (MBA), American Bar Association, Boston Bar Association, and Plymouth County Bar Association. He is also a Brandeis Life Fellow of the Massachusetts Bar Foundation, by invitation extended “to select Massachusetts lawyers whose professional, public and private careers have demonstrated outstanding contributions to their communities.”

Member, Litigation Section of the American Bar Association and the Council of Appellate Lawyers

Chair, MBA Amicus Curiae Committee.

Co-Chair, MBA Appellate Courts Bench-Bar Committee.

Associate Editor, Massachusetts Law Review

Awards

Massachusetts Bar Association President’s Award

In 2021, Tom received the prestigious Massachusetts Bar Association President’s Award “for his selfless dedication, leadership, and service to the MBA and the Massachusetts legal community.”

Massachusetts Bar Association Volunteer Recognition Award

On June 21, 2023, Tom was honored with the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Volunteer Recognition Award. The award was presented by MBA President Grace V.B. Garcia who  described Tom as “a giant in the legal community” and “a driving force behind the MBA’s mantra as the preeminent voice of the legal profession.”

Special Service Award from BC Law Alumni Association, Law Day 2016

Hingham Journal Citizen of the Year Award, 1998.

Selected Appellate Matters

This sampling of appellate cases in which Tom has been involved represents a selected, small portion of his total experience and past performance is not intended to be a representation of likely future results, which must be assessed on a case-by-case basis.  Appellate briefs that Tom has filed (other than in impounded cases) are publicly available in the detailed records of appellate courts, either online or in their archives.

Amicus Curiae Briefs

Commonwealth of Massachusetts, ex rel. Johan Rosenberg v. JPMorgan Chase & Co., et al., 487 Mass. 403 (2021) (SJC-12973).

Tom coauthored on behalf of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce an Amicus Brief involving the public disclosure bar of the Massachusetts False Claims Act.

Hedbeg v. Wakamatsu, 482 Mass. 613 (2019) (SJC-12624).

Tom coauthored with Professor Mark Brodin an Amicus Brief on an issue of first impression involving Evidence Law. See https://lawmagazine.bc.edu/2019/08/amicus-clinic-chalks-up-another-success/ See also A Mastermind at Work – Boston College Law School Magazine (bc.edu); http://lawmagazine.bc.edu/2019/03/a-mastermind-at-work/.

Care and Protection of Rashida, 488 Mass. 217 (2021) (SJC-13072).

Tom worked in conjunction with faculty and students engaged in Boston College Law School’s Juvenile Justice Clinic, to author an amicus brief urging the Supreme Judicial Court to decide this Care and Protection case as it eventually did. See https://lawmagazine.bc.edu/2021/09/amicus-argues-for-the-child/.

In The Matter of Olchowski, 485 Mass 807 (2020) (SJC-12730).

Tom co-authored an Amicus Brief on behalf of the Boston Bar Association, Massachusetts Bar association, and Real Estate Bar Association. The Brief argued against turning over to the Treasurer as abandoned property money held in Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts, and the court so held in its decision.

In the Matter of Shelley M. Joseph, (SJC-OE-140) (2019).

When the Supreme Judicial Court summarily suspended Judge Joseph without pay, Tom took the lead in filing on behalf of the Massachusetts Bar Association, the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys, and the Women’s Bar association an Amicus Brief and Post-Argument Amicus Letter urging the Court to reinstate her salary. The Court did so.

Department of Revenue Child Support Enforcement v. Grullon, 485 Mass. 129 (2020) (SJC-12784).

Tom coauthored an Amicus Brief on behalf of the Massachusetts Bar Association successfully contending that an order holding a father in contempt for failure to pay child support should be reversed because the proceedings in the Probate Court failed to provide him with his constitutional right to Due Process of law.

Civil Cases

Balles v. BabcockPower, Inc., 476 Mass. 565 (2017) (SJC-12112).

Tom successfully contended that the Supreme Judicial Court should affirm a substantial judgment entered in Mr. Balles’s favor against his former employer.

Mcinnes v. LPL Financial. LLC, 466 Mass. 256 (2013).

As part of the Collora team, Tom briefed and argued an important case in which the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court established the enforceability of arbitration agreements to claims under the Massachusetts Consumer Protection statute, General Laws Chapter 93A.

Selected Publications

Book Co-author, Armstrong and Carey, Massachusetts Appellate Practice, LexisNexis (2022 ed.).

Law Review Article, Employee Noncompetition Laws and Practices: A Massachusetts Paradigm Shift Goes National, Massachusetts Law Review Vol.103, No. 2 (2022) (with Jerry Cohen and Karen Breda)

Law Review Article, An Introductory Note, Massachusetts Law Review Vol. 100, No. 1, on the history of the Review

Selected Speaking Engagements

Speaker, Commemoration of the Cocoanut Grove Fire, Hingham Town Hall (2022)

Lincoln Day Speaker, February 8, 2014, Old Ship Church, Hingham.

Speaker, Recent Developments in Appellate Practice, Massachusetts Bar Association Annual Meetings, 2004 to 2008, reporting on developments in Massachusetts appellate courts and the First Circuit.

Moderator & Panelist, Success on Appeal, CLE Panels, Massachusetts Bar Association.

Speaker, Tips On Effective Brief Writing, MBA CLE Program.

Charitable and Social Memberships

Proprietor, Social Law Library

Member, The Boston Athenaeum

Friend, The Arnold Arboretum

Town of Hingham
Recent Civic Activities

Trustee, Hingham Public Library

Chair, Senior Center Building Committee

Occasional Lecturer, Hingham Senior Center Lifetime Learning programs.