About Michael T. McCarthy

I have 25+ years of experience handling financial and investigative matters — as a regulator, investigator, and counselor.

After graduating from Harvard Law School and Georgetown University, I built a career on understanding how banking, financial, and business systems actually work, what happens when they fail, and how to use them to protect people, organizations, and their funds.

After twenty-five years learning financial and business systems from the inside, I bring that same regulator's and investigator's insight to every client I represent — the families and small businesses of this community, and the institutions that must navigate these systems every day.

My practice draws on my experience as a senior executive with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Export-Import Bank of the United States, and U.S. Department of the Treasury. Earlier in my career, I was an attorney for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, VA.

In these leadership roles — spanning every branch of government and both sides of the political aisle — I built my career on planning for contingencies, negotiating with partners and adversaries alike, persuading legislators and judges, adapting to new realities as they emerged, and, above all, providing clear, calm, and steady guidance in ever-changing and uncertain situations.

Beyond the practice of law, I teach business law as an adjunct professor at Marymount University, and I've taught Fourth Amendment search-and-seizure law to federal law enforcement agents at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center since 2015. I'm also a volunteer attorney with Wills for Heroes, a Virginia State Bar-sponsored program that prepares wills, powers of attorney, and advance medical directives at no cost for local first responders and their families.

I live in the Donaldson Run neighborhood with my wife, three daughters, and two dogs. Over the years our kids have attended Washington-Liberty, Yorktown, Dorothy Hamm, Williamsburg, and Taylor. When not practicing law or teaching, I'm an open-water swimmer, USA Swimming referee, parishioner at St. Joseph's on Capitol Hill, and long-suffering fan of Georgetown Hoyas basketball.