Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly Features Locke Lord Partner Allison O’Neil as 2023 Circle of Excellence Honoree

Boston Partner Allison O’Neil, Co-Chair of Locke Lord’s White Collar Defense and Investigations Practice Group and a member of the Firm’s Executive Committee, was featured and pictured in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly as a 2023 Circle of Excellence honoree. The award, which recognizes only five women lawyers each year, celebrates those who have been previously honored as Top Women but whose continuing achievements merit additional distinction. Honorees were recognized at an annual awards program on November 1.

O’Neil, who began her legal career as a Middlesex County ADA in the Child Abuse Unit, reflects on the first case she tried that involved a little boy who had been abused by his neighbor. On each anniversary of the defendant’s conviction, the little boy’s mother sends her flowers. “I have had people come up to me and tell me or write a note that I was the first person who really listened, or the first person who believed them,” she recalls. “Reading those notes makes me proud of what we accomplished.”

With a strong desire to give back, O’Neil works diligently to foster and develop younger female lawyers’ careers through the Boston Women’s White Collar Defense Association, a chapter that was founded more than a decade ago and is committed to mentoring younger female associates in the white collar defense field. She is also active in the American Bar Association (ABA)’s White Collar Crime Division, and most recently was a panelist at the ABA’s 38th National Institute on White Collar Crime, covering new developments and trends in the Northeast to better inform attorneys of strategies and arguments used in litigating white collar cases.

O’Neil’s practice includes white collar investigations, internal investigations, employment matters and complex business litigation. She has experience representing independent schools seeking to address allegations of wrongdoing. She also represents companies and individuals facing False Claims Act investigations, FCPA investigations and internal investigations related to employment matters and compliance.