Gerard T. “Gerry” Leone, Jr.

Gerry is a collaborative team leader with broad-based public, governmental, and private practice experience, who provides clients with thoughtful, strategic advice and practical decision making tools in legal, business, regulatory, compliance, and ethics matters.

Gerry’s comprehensive client-focused approach to service is one of “one-stop-shopping” in which he uses his wide-ranging team building and leadership experience to efficiently manage teams and resources deployed to handle sensitive and complex client needs and problems. He seeks to adeptly control, mitigate, and eliminate client exposure—from risk prevention to crisis management and everything in between, including independent corporate monitoring or receivership needed to investigate, address, mitigate, and remediate alleged compliance related misconduct.

Gerry serves a variety of clients across practice areas including litigation, higher education, investigations (internal, external, and governmental), and special situations. He advises organizations and individuals in need of counsel, and possibly defense.

As a result of his past experience, Gerry is comfortable interacting with local, state, and federal prosecutors, government regulators, and law enforcement officers. His prior roles as a private industry human resources officer and compliance director, and as Regional Counsel and Director of an international investigations and consulting firm, inform his ability to bring people and agencies together as they seek to achieve objectives in a cooperative manner.

Prior to joining Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, Gerry served as General Counsel to the University of Massachusetts from 2017-2023, where he was the Chief Legal Officer, and an advisor and counsel for the entire system and the President’s Office, Board of Trustees, and related University business entities. He led and managed the internal firm of 20 lawyers responsible for a broad scope of legal, regulatory, compliance, and ethics practice areas related to conventional higher education matters (such as NCAA and Title IX, and public and failing higher education institutions), as well as internal and external investigations, and litigation, compliance, labor and employment, immigration, governance, intellectual property, real estate, and corporate matters. He uses that experience to help higher education institutions and secondary schools govern themselves, protect and preserve financial and organizational assets, protect critical infrastructure projects, and resolve civil and criminal disputes.

Gerry is also a former elected District Attorney for Middlesex County, First Assistant US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Chief of the Criminal Bureau at the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, and Assistant District Attorney in Suffolk and Middlesex Counties in Massachusetts. He prosecuted high-profile and well-known local, regional, national, and international cases covering white collar and organized crime, anti-terrorism, murder, physical and sexual assault, major crimes, corruption, and fraud. For example, Gerry led the investigative prosecutorial team that obtained a conviction of the first Al Qaeda terrorist on American soil (the so-called “Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid) and his co-conspirator Sajiid Badaat in the UK.

Gerry has deep ties to the Boston and broader Massachusetts communities and longstanding connections to the New England law enforcement and legal industry. Throughout his career, he has also actively engaged in and been responsible for diversity and inclusion efforts within the offices that he has led, managed, and supervised.