Carolyn Pokorny is a partner and Co-Chair of Akerman's White Collar Crime and Government Investigations Practice in New York. She represents companies, executives, and boards of directors in high-stakes, multi-jurisdictional government investigations, enforcement actions, and litigation; conducts internal investigations for corporations and boards; and serves as a trusted advisor to clients navigating sensitive crises, enforcement scrutiny, and reputational risk. Her practice spans internal and employment investigations, FCPA and anti-corruption, anti-money laundering, sanctions and export controls, national security, the False Claims Act, complex litigation, crisis management, and emerging issues involving sports integrity.
She brings more than two decades of service at the highest levels of federal and New York state government. As Acting U.S. Attorney and First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, she led one of the largest and most important U.S. Attorney’s Offices in the country, overseeing investigations and litigation across the Criminal and Civil Divisions. She oversaw some of the country’s most significant corporate enforcement, fraud, national security, sanctions, cybercrime, and public-corruption matters. These matters included the Office’s prosecution of Lafarge — the first corporate guilty plea to material-support-for-terrorism charges — public corruption and corporate fraud prosecutions, and significant sanctions, export-control, and transnational-repression cases. Over more than two decades of senior government service, she has held senior leadership roles under multiple administrations of both parties.
During her earlier 14 years at the Office, she served as Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division, supervising more than 100 assistant U.S. attorneys; as founder and Chief of the International Narcotics and Money Laundering Section; as Chief of the General Crimes Section; and as Senior Litigation Counsel in the Public Integrity Section. She tried 11 jury cases — securing convictions in matters including the fraud prosecution of a former New York State Senate Majority Leader and securities and bank fraud trials — supervised federal prosecutors in dozens more, and briefed and argued more than a dozen appeals before the Second Circuit.
As Inspector General of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the largest transportation agency in North America, she led the agency’s independent watchdog office, overseeing investigations of waste, fraud, abuse, and serious safety failures and reviewing and strengthening how the agency investigates major safety events. She also provided independent oversight of the agency’s federally required monitoring of its $4.8 billion in Superstorm Sandy recovery projects — performed in-house rather than through third-party monitors.
As Special Counsel for Public Integrity in the New York Governor’s Office, she led a statewide ethics, risk, and compliance program spanning more than 50 state agencies and authorities. She also advised the governor's office and state agencies on federal and state investigations.
As counsel and senior advisor to a U.S. Attorney General, she advised the attorney general and other senior Department leadership on the Department’s most significant and sensitive litigation and enforcement matters, including the public and strategic dimensions of high-profile matters.
Carolyn writes and speaks frequently on white collar enforcement and emerging issues in sports integrity. Earlier in her career, she was a partner at a litigation boutique, where she represented companies and individuals — including a public official and corporate executives — in federal, state, and internal investigations. She was an Adjunct Associate Professor of Clinical Law at Brooklyn Law School and a law clerk to the late U.S. District Judge Arthur D. Spatt.