Michael Philip McDermott
Mike is the President at O’Connell and Aronowitz. He handles plaintiff’s personal injury cases and criminal defense at our firm. He has handled or supervised over three dozen homicide prosecutions, trying many of those cases to verdict, and he has been a court-appointed special prosecutor in homicide cases in Albany and Rensselaer counties.
While in law school, Mike was an Associate Editor of the Albany Law Review. Upon graduation, he entered the Albany County District Attorney’s Office as an assistant district attorney under the Hon. Sol Greenberg. In 1991 he was hired by the Hon. Mary Donohue as Chief Assistant District Attorney of Rensselaer County.
After leaving the Rensselaer County DA’s Office, Mike was a partner in the former Albany law firm of Bouck, Holloway, Kiernan and Casey where he specialized in defending insurance carriers in arson cases. In 2002, he returned to the Albany County District Attorney’s Office and served as Chief Assistant District Attorney under the Hon. Paul A. Clyne and the Hon. P. David Soares. In 2004, Mike was named New York State Arson Prosecutor of the Year by the New York State Fire Investigators Association. In 2007, he was appointed by Gov. Eliot Spitzer to the New York State Commission on Sentencing Reform. He previously served as a member of the City of Albany Gun Violence Task Force.
For the 11th consecutive year, Mike was named to the 2024 Upstate New York Super Lawyers list, a distinction earned by less than 5% of the attorneys in the state. He is a past-president of the Albany County Bar Association and currently serves on the boards of the Albany County Bar Foundation and the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. Mike previously served on the board of directors of TASC, Inc. a local not for profit organization whose mission was to assist the courts in providing alternatives to incarceration.
- Criminal Law
- DUI & DWI
- New York
- New York State Office of Court Administration
- ID Number: 2324879
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- Albany Law School
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- New York State Bar # 2324879
- Member
- - Current
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