Anne Marie Carson is a Member, and Chair of the firm’s Corporate/Mergers and Acquisitions practice group. Her practice includes mergers and acquisitions, general business services, and family office counseling.

Mergers and Acquisitions

Ms. Carson has experience with mergers, stock and asset transactions, divestitures, and leveraged buyouts. She works with clients from a diverse group of industries including manufacturing, distribution, agriculture, and renewable energy. Ms. Carson has extensive experience with private equity investments in platform initiatives and strategic acquisitions.

She is an integral part of the firm’s cross-section transaction team and works closely with the other professional advisors involved.

Business Services

Ms. Carson advises clients on their business strategies including entity formation, governance and succession planning. Her experience includes conducting comprehensive due diligence, drafting and reviewing contracts to manage risk and capture opportunity, analyzing terms and availability of funding sources and succession planning. Ms. Carson completed a four-month secondment in the quality and operations legal team of a major medical device and equipment manufacturing company where she supported international contract negotiations, product development and license arrangements, and formal legal responses to federal regulatory agencies.

Family Office Counseling

Ms. Carson works with high-net-worth clients and their family office entities regarding investment strategy and execution, and governance and succession planning, while coordinating closely with Miller Johnson’s Probate and Estate Planning practice group.

Professional Experience

Following graduation from Georgetown University Law Center, Ms. Carson was an Associate in a Washington, D.C., firm, focusing on equity and debt infrastructure and development transactions.  She represented lenders on their project finance needs across Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Africa and the Middle East.  During her law school,  she interned under government security clearance, for the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the U.S. Department of State and provided legal services for overseas citizens.  Prior to attending law school, Ms. Carson taught English to pre-school through fifth grade students in Alençon, France and World History and Geography in Vienna, Virginia.

Ms. Carson is fluent in French and proficient in each of Spanish and Portuguese.

Education

Ms. Carson earned her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 2014.  In law school, she was a Global Law Scholar, a Greenhalgh Trial Advocacy Competition finalist, editor for the International Law Journal, a member of the Barristers’ Council Trial Advocacy Division and represented a client through the Innocence Project.  She earned her B.A., magna cum laude, from Grand Valley State University in 2009.

Personal and Community Activities

Ms. Carson serves on the board of the Grand Rapids Public Schools Foundation. She remains involved with Grand Valley State University and was a 2016 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Distinguished Alumni-in-Residence. Ms. Carson and her husband enjoy life with their daughter, son, two dogs and two cats.

Professional Recognition

• Named as a member of the 2024 class of Notable Women In Law by Crain’s Grand Rapids Business.
• Recognized as one of Best Lawyers®: Ones to Watch in America in 2024,  2025 and 2026 for her exceptional work in Corporate and Mergers and Acquisitions law.
• Awarded Young Dealmaker of the Year by MiBiz in 2022 for her outstanding transactional work.
• Honored as a Women in the Law recipient in 2021 for excellence in legal practice leadership, mentorship, and service.