Michael A. Cunniff
Michael A. Cunniff was awarded a law degree magna cum laude by Suffolk University Law School in Boston, and an undergraduate degree in psychology cum laude by Boston College. He is admitted to practice law before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the Massachusetts Court of Appeals, and all state trial courts in Maine and Massachusetts, as well as in the United States District Court for the District of Maine, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court.
Mike was a founding partner of what is known today as McCloskey, Mina, Cunniff & Frawley, LLC, in 2002, and he has been Of Counsel to the firm since 2012, when he began to accept special assignments in international rule of law projects funded by the United States Agency for International Development, the European Union, and United States Government agencies. Previously, Mike was associate counsel in the litigation department of a large first-tier Portland law firm, where he became co-chair of the Technology, Security & Investigations Practice Group, as well as the coordinator of the firm's criminal defense practice.
He has handled complex civil matters litigated in federal and state courts as counsel for plaintiffs and defendants, served as defense counsel in complicated federal and state criminal matters, ranging from allegations of attempted murder and manslaughter to fraud, criminal conspiracies, and regulatory offenses, and represented professionals in administrative disciplinary proceedings. In addition to having extensive experience in pretrial litigation, hearings and trials, Mike has briefed and argued cases before the Maine Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme Court, he was lead counsel in a petition for certiorari considered by the Court. Moreover, he has managed and conducted internal investigations for government and corporate clients. He frequently provides legal counsel to professional and corporate clients that are susceptible to administrative, civil, or criminal sanctions because of the heavily regulated nature of their activities.
An understanding of how technology applies in a forensic setting can be critical to the success of a modern trial lawyer. Mike was a principal in The McCloskey Resource Group, a separate consultancy that emerged because of McCloskey, Mina, Cunniff & Frawley's reliance on forensic technology as a litigation tool and its unique investigative approaches to support its casework. Mike is well acquainted with e-discovery and computer forensic techniques, and he contributed a chapter entitled Practical Considerations: Collection of Electronically Stored Information to the 2009 Edition of The Comprehensive Guide to Lost Profits Damages for Experts and Attorneys (Nancy J. Fannon ed.).
Enlisted to help prepare aspiring lawyers for the courtroom, Mike accepted an appointment from the University of Maine School of Law as a member of its adjunct faculty, where he lectured from 2007 until early 2012 about trial practice and sentencing law and strategy. Mike also regularly develops and delivers continuing legal education and professionalization programs to the law enforcement community, including constitutional criminal procedure, internal investigations, case preparation, situational uses of force, and police liability considerations.
Deeply committed to the public service aspects of practicing law, Mike is an alumnus of the Edward Thaxter Gignoux Inn of Court, an organization of judges, law professors, lawyers, and law students who meet regularly to discuss legal trends in Maine's state and federal courts. He was a Bar panelist on the United States District Court for the District of Maine's Strategic Planning Committee, which assisted the Court in adapting its practices in consideration of emerging concerns and otherwise facilitating the administration of justice in the federal forum, until its work was completed in 2009. He served a lengthy term as a member of a panel assembled by the United States District Court for the District of Maine under the Criminal Justice Act, and he routinely accepted appointments as defense counsel for indigent defendants in serious criminal matters as part of a federal access to justice program. Currently, Mike is a member of a special CJA emeritus panel, which is comprised of a group of highly experienced trial attorneys who are appointed by the Court as counsel for indigent defendants named in complex or difficult federal prosecutions. Early in his law practice, Mike also served a pro bono term as a Special Assistant District Attorney in Kennebec County. In criminal matters involving juveniles, young adults, and cases involving mental health considerations, he has collaborated with parents, mental health care providers, prosecutors, law enforcement officials, probation officers, and judges to help set juvenile or young adult offenders, or mentally ill clients, on the correct track when they become involved in litigation.
Mike began his law practice in 1999 after 27 years of federal law enforcement service with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and its predecessor agency, the United States Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. He emerged from his federal law enforcement career with a reputation for a high level of professionalism, superlative leadership skills, and an unusual record of accomplishment in multi-jurisdictional, multi-disciplinary law enforcement settings. At the time of his retirement from federal service, Mike, then a Supervisory Special Agent, was managing a Massachusetts-based multi-jurisdictional task force operating in the inner-city neighborhoods of Eastern Massachusetts with the goals of reducing drug trafficking and improving the quality of neighborhood life, often concentrating on the suppression of drug-related violence.
Serving in permanent posts of duty in Boston, New York City, and Portland, and performing temporary duty in many other locations, Mike investigated and supervised complicated cases involving sophisticated criminal organizations with operations that were often interstate or international in scope and completed risky undercover assignments. Mike was also the lead federal law enforcement officer in a Maine task force that investigated diversion of pharmaceuticals and failures to comply with regulatory requirements for legitimately manufactured drugs, a senior federal investigator in an anti-smuggling task force in Maine, and the manager of a multi-disciplinary, multi-jurisdictional financial investigative group in Massachusetts. As a federal agent, he was a regular member of prosecutor-investigator teams that presented complex cases to federal grand juries and then tried the indicted cases to federal juries, and he frequently testified as a percipient or expert witness in connection with those matters.
Altogether, Mike completed 30 years of law enforcement agency employment, beginning in 1969 as a college student, when he completed a fellowship in police training that was sponsored by the Boston Mayor’s Office of Public Service, which yielded recommendations for the modernization of the Boston Police Department’s training regimen. He was also employed full-time as a Boston Police Department cadet from 1969 until 1972 while attending Boston College full-time, which included apprenticeship assignments at the Headquarters Criminal Investigation Division, the Roxbury (Division 2) Detective Squad, the Roxbury (Division 2) Front Desk Cadre, and the Central Complaint Unit. His early experience in the municipal policing setting was followed by a 27-year federal investigative career.
The son of a Boston police officer who was raised in the neighborhoods of Boston, Mike is a dual citizen of Ireland (European Union) and the United States. He and his wife, Linda, have three grown children and they reside in Scarborough.
Tel: (207) 772-6805
Fax: (207) 879-9374
Email: mcunniff@lawmmc.com
