Carrie F. Ricci is currently a Lecturer on Law at Harvard University Law School. From January 2022 to January 2025, she served as General Counsel of the U.S. Army, a presidentially nominated, senate confirmed position. In this role, she provided strategic legal guidance to Army leadership and led the Army’s legal response to evolving statutory and regulatory frameworks.
In 2020, Ms. Ricci served on the Fort Hood Independent Review Committee, a five-member panel of Highly Qualified Experts that authored an in-depth assessment of the Fort Hood command climate and its impact soldiers, particularly as it related to preventing sexual assault and sexual harassment. The assessment led to sweeping reforms across the Army and was the impetus for additional reforms across all military services.
Ms. Ricci’s prior appointments include a decade of service in the US Department of Agriculture’s Office of the General Counsel, where she served as a senior executive providing advice and counsel as Associate General Counsel for General Law and Research (January-September 2025) and Associate General Counsel for Marketing, Regulatory, and Food Safety Programs (June 2012-December 2021). She is also a former Assistant General Counsel to the Department of Defense Education Activity and served in the U.S. Army in a variety of senior attorney roles, including Chief of International Law for U.S. Central Command and Deputy Staff Judge Advocate to the Army’s Intelligence and Security Command. She twice deployed to combat zones and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel.
Ms. Ricci holds two Master of Laws (LL.M.), the first in Intellectual Property from the George Washington University Law School, and the second in Military Law from Army JAG School. She earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Maryland School of Law and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (Finance and International Management) from Georgetown University. She entered active duty as an Adjutant General Corp officer before attending law school through the Army’s Funded Legal Education Program.
Ms. Ricci’s accomplishments have been recognized with several high-level honors, including the Department of the Army’s Leadership award, the Distinguished Civilian Service Medal, the Judge Advocates Association Distinguished Life Service Award, the League of United Latin American Citizens’ Presidential Medal of Honor, the Hispanic National Bar Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the USDA Outstanding Manager Award. Ms. Ricci is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States.