Clare E Connors

As the United States Attorney, Clare E. Connors is the chief federal law enforcement official in the State of Hawaii.  The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Hawaii serves the approximately 1.4 million residents of the State of Hawaii with 28 attorneys and over 40 support staff.  Ms. Connors was sworn in as the United States Attorney on January 3, 2022, after she was nominated by President Joseph Biden on September 28, 2021 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 7. 

Ms. Connors was raised in Honolulu and graduated from Punahou School.  She began her legal career with the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.  As part of the Attorney General’s Honors Program, she served as a trial attorney in the Tax Division’s Western Criminal Enforcement Section from 2003 to 2004.  During this time, she prosecuted complex tax crimes and also served as a Special Assistant U. S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia.  She returned home in 2004 to join the office she now leads, serving as an Assistant U.S. Attorney from 2004 to 2011.  She prosecuted a broad variety of crimes but specialized in the handling of complex fraud, tax, public corruption and child exploitation crimes. 

After leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Ms. Connors worked until 2019 as a civil litigator and partner with the law firm Davis Levin Livingston, where she primarily handled commercial disputes, wrongful death actions, unfair and deceptive trade practices, medical malpractice claims on behalf of injured persons and other personal injury matters.  Until this appointment, she had been serving as the Attorney General of the State of Hawaii since January 3, 2019.  In that position, she was the chief legal officer and chief law enforcement officer of the State of Hawaii, with a staff of 180 attorneys and over 500 professional and support personnel.

Ms. Connors is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and has been active in both the Hawaii State Bar Association and the Hawaii chapter of the Federal Bar Association.  She was the pro bono coordinator for the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii and has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Hawaii, William S. Richardson School of Law, where she co-taught a course on small businesses and entrepreneurship.  In 2015, Ms. Connors was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as a federal district judge for the District of Hawaii.  Her nomination was awaiting a final vote by the full Senate in 2016, when President Obama left office.

Ms. Connors received her J.D. in 2002 from Harvard Law School and her B.A. in 1996 from Yale College.