Falcon Flashback | Patrick Mincey '99

 

I grew up in Pinehurst. I began at the Middle School in 5th grade in 1992 and attended through graduation in 1999. I recognize now as a parent there is extraordinary value in attending one institution throughout your preparatory education. I believe that was a significant factor for my family sending my brother, Drew ’02, and me to O’Neal.

 

 

I graduated from Davidson College in 2003 with degrees in English and French. I was studying abroad in Paris when 9/11 happened which became deeply influential to my career focus. After college, I worked as a paralegal for a large law firm in Charlotte where I got my first exposure to representing companies in very complex business and financial transactions. In 2005, before enrolling in law school at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia where continuous generations of our family attended for the last 110 years, I lived with my brother in the UK where I was taking classes on criminal finance and terrorism funding at the London School of Economics. Drew and I were on our morning commute on separate trains when the 7/7 terrorist bombings of the London Underground occurred. This was another influential moment in my career development.

 

After being admitted to the North Carolina Bar in 2008, I returned to Pinehurst and practiced criminal defense for almost five years with Van Camp, Meacham & Newman. I was in the courtroom every day of the week and got invaluable trial and litigation experience, including with death penalty and federal crimes. In 2012, I married my wife, Lydia (Mademoiselle Taylor), who at the time was teaching Upper School French at O’Neal. That same year, we moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, where I joined an 80-person firm to launch our white collar crimes and government investigations practice group.

 

For much of my career, my practice has focused on illicit international finance and money laundering. I represent whistleblowers who bravely expose multi-billion dollar money laundering conspiracies that often times involve threats to U.S. national security, our financial system, sanctions evasion and terrorism funding. I also defend many companies and individuals in complex government investigations involving financial frauds.

 

This year, my firm and I launched an affiliate group based out of Washington, D.C. called Mincey Bell Milnor with partners whose practice is devoted to complex government investigations and prosecutions all over the world. Much of my practice involves national political officials, including separate matters involving two presidential candidates this cycle. Much of my work involves trying to keep problematic and sensitive issues very discreet, out of the public eye. This is not always possible, so I often represent clients who receive extraordinary amounts of media attention. I help clients navigate not just their legal problems, but also their public relations crises. Particularly representing whistleblowers who often risk their lives and livelihoods to expose misconduct amidst hostile and charged scandals, the representations are deeply meaningful and it is a privilege to be responsible for trying to help truly courageous people.

 

 

I have an indelible recollection of wheeling a great big old television into Bob Howell’s classroom on the afternoon of October 3, 1995 so that our English class could watch the return of the O.J. Simpson verdict. I recall where I was during the infamous Bronco chase the year before, and I had watched the trial every day before and after school for months. One of Simpson’s lawyers, F. Lee Bailey, was someone I as a 9th grader had been studying for months, and whose mastery of cross-examination on the biggest stage was extremely important later in my development as a trial lawyer. It was a muggish, sultry afternoon and the classroom was sticky with anticipation. There was a vacuum silence and then eruption up and down the Upper School hallways as the foreperson read the verdict. Watching F. Lee Bailey in that moment, a single thought crystallized and forever moved me: I’ve got to be right there, on the biggest stage, in the biggest representations, just like that guy is doing. And then we all sat down and tried to focus on Prospero’s final lines from The Tempest: “As you from crimes would pardoned be, Let your indulgence set me free.” It was an electric moment: in the country, in the classroom, and for me.

 

 

I received an invaluable classical education at O’Neal. From 7th Grade through 12th grade, I had six consecutive years with Father John Nicola, including at least five years of rigorous Latin and one course on ethics, logic and reasoning. That and the literary curricula of Bob Howell’s English and Madame Cagle’s French classes formed the foundation of my lifelong devotion to exploring the Western Canon.

 

 

Mr. Bob Howell. And I would have enjoyed an interview with the late Father John D. Nicola.

 

We’re so proud of you, Patrick. Thanks again for doing this. Mr. Howell, you know we’re coming for you soon!

About the author: 
Jared Lina '97, an attorney himself and O'Neal Trustee recently took the opportunity to connect with Patrick Mincey '99.

Want to nominate someone for Falcon Flashback? Email alumni@onealschool.org.

Read More Falcon Flashbacks!