Caroline K. Leonard

Caroline is a business lawyer who helps businesses expand, transition ownership, negotiate commercial financing, form, wind-up, or sell. Caroline’s practice also involves real estate, including condominium and timeshare developments, corporate compliance, securities, regulatory matters, land use, and commercial litigation. Caroline advises her clients on transactional matters, how to avoid litigation, and what to do and expect if litigation occurs.

She continues to be selected by her peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® for Concord, NH in the fields of Commercial Transactions/UCC Law, Real Estate Law, and Securities Regulation, and was named by Best Lawyers® as Concord’s 2023 “Lawyer of the Year” in Commercial Transactions/UCC Law. Caroline is recognized as a top-rated business and corporate lawyer and litigation attorney in Concord, NH, by Super Lawyers® with a Rising Stars designation for 2016-2023.

In 2020, Caroline received the New Hampshire Bar Foundation’s Robert Kirby Award. The Kirby Award is presented annually to an attorney 35 years old or younger who demonstrates the traits of civility, courtesy, perspective, and excellent advocacy. Bob Kirby, for whom the award is named, was an attorney with Gallagher, Callahan & Gartrell, P.C., and is remembered as a young lawyer “of great skill, civility and good humor” when he died at age 35. Caroline is the 24th recipient of the award, and the first person from the firm to receive it.

Caroline is serving her third, three-year term on the New Hampshire Professional Conduct Committee, to which she was appointed by the New Hampshire Supreme Court. She is presently the Vice Chair.

Caroline has served on multiple nonprofit boards. She is the Immediate Past President of the New Hampshire Women’s Bar Association, where she has served on the Board for the past eight years. She served for four years as Community Outreach Chair of the Webster-Batchelder American Inn of Court, three years as Trustee of the New Hampshire Supreme Court Society and three years as Director of Red River Theatres. Caroline is an alumna of the Junior Service League of Concord and served six years on the Northern New England (ME, NH, and VT) regional board of the American Red Cross. In 2019, the NH/VT division of the American Red Cross awarded Caroline “Board Member of the Year.”

Caroline taught a legal residency course for two semesters as an adjunct professor at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law. This course places law students in the legal field for a semester, typically with private firms, judges, or companies’ in-house legal departments. Through this experience, students apply the skills they have learned in law school in real-practice settings before graduation.

Caroline graduated cum laude from the University of New Hampshire School of Law and earned her bachelor of arts degree, magna cum laude, from Colby College. At UNH Law, she was a Daniel Webster Scholar, president of the Student Bar Association, and justice of Phi Alpha Delta. She was awarded “Outstanding Law Student” by the National Association of Women Lawyers.

Caroline serves on the firm’s management committee. She is admitted in New Hampshire, Maine, the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Hampshire, and the United States First Circuit Court of Appeals.