09 Jun 2026
Akerman Welcomes Carolyn Pokorny as Partner and Co‑Chair of White Collar Crime and Government Investigations in New York
"Akerman has hired Carolyn Pokorny as partner and co‑chair of its New York White Collar Crime and Government Investigations Practice; she will handle government enforcement, internal investigations, trial litigation, crisis management and sports integrity."
Carolyn brings more than two decades of federal and New York state government leadership and prior partnership‑level experience in private practice. She served as Acting U.S. Attorney and First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, where she oversaw major corporate enforcement matters involving fraud, national security, sanctions, cybercrime, and public corruption, including the office’s first corporate guilty plea to material‑support‑for‑terrorism charges. Earlier in her career at the Eastern District of New York, she founded and led the Office’s International Narcotics and Money Laundering Section and helped coordinate national efforts targeting transnational criminal organizations, including work leading to the 2009 indictment of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Over the course of her career she has supervised hundreds of federal prosecutors and investigators.
Carolyn also has substantial courtroom and appellate experience: she has tried 11 jury cases to verdict, supervised prosecutors in dozens more, and has briefed and argued more than a dozen appeals before the Second Circuit in matters including public corruption, securities and bank fraud, and other complex white collar cases. She has served in senior roles under administrations of both parties and has held significant oversight and advisory positions in state government, including as Inspector General of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and as Special Counsel for Public Integrity in the New York Governor’s Office, where she directed a statewide ethics, risk, and compliance program spanning more than 50 state agencies and authorities. She has also served as counsel and senior advisor to a U.S. Attorney General.
At Akerman, Carolyn will continue to conduct internal investigations for corporations and boards, advise clients navigating sensitive crises, and represent companies and executives in complex federal and state enforcement proceedings. Her practice at the firm encompasses anti‑corruption matters, anti‑money laundering, sanctions and export controls, national security, the False Claims Act, employment and internal investigations, complex commercial litigation, and sports integrity and betting‑related enforcement and compliance issues.