Carey R. Dunne

Carey R. Dunne is a Founding Principal of Free and Fair Litigation Group and the Chair of its Board. Carey has had a nearly four-decade career as a prosecutor and defense attorney in senior levels of government and private practice.

Most recently, Carey was the General Counsel in the office of the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, where he led the criminal investigation of former president Donald J. Trump until Carey’s resignation from the case, alongside his colleague Mark F. Pomerantz, in February 2022.

In that role, Carey successfully argued Trump v. Vance before the U.S. Supreme Court in May 2020. The Court rejected President Trump’s claim of constitutional immunity, and ruled 7-2 that he was required to comply with a state grand jury subpoena for his tax returns. According to the New York Times, the opinion addressed “one of the most consequential prosecutorial decisions in U.S. history.” Carey also prevailed at oral argument in earlier stages of the case – twice in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, and twice in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

In the wake of the Supreme Court victory, the D.A.’s Office obtained millions of pages of tax records from President Trump’s accountants. Several months later, Carey was the lead attorney at the arraignment of the Trump Organization and its Chief Financial Officer upon a grand jury indictment for criminal tax fraud in connection with a 15-year scheme to avoid income taxes.

Previously, Carey spent 30 years specializing in white-collar criminal defense at Davis Polk & Wardwell, where he also sat for nine years on the firm’s three-person Management Committee and chaired its Litigation Department. He also served as the president of the 23,000 member New York City Bar Association, and as Chair of its Judiciary Committee. Carey has a long history of service on non-profit boards and to the New York State Courts; he currently sits on the Advisory Board of the Everytown Center for the Defense of Gun Safety. He is a graduate of Oberlin College and Harvard Law School.