PROVIDENCE – Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch announced last week that Assistant Attorney General Stacey Pires is the new chief of his office’s criminal division. Pires will be the first woman to serve in the position.
Pires, who began working in the office the same day as Lynch in 1994, will succeed Assistant Attorney General Alan R. Goulart, who was approved by the Senate to become a R.I. Traffic Tribunal magistrate last month.
Pires graduated Boston College in 1990 and Suffolk University Law School in 1993. She began her legal career in the Rhode Island Judiciary, serving in the law clerk pool assisting the state Supreme Court and Superior Court. She joined the office of the attorney general in 1994 under then-chief prosecutor Jeffrey B. Pine, climbing the ranks through stints in the office’s criminal division, grand jury and domestic violence units.
She became chief of the domestic violence and sexual assault unit under former Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse.
“[Pires] is the rare person who is as good at managing others as she is at her primary calling, … prosecuting cases,” Lynch said in a statement. “Many exceptionally talented women work in this office. Many more have preceded them. None, however, have blazed the same trail as Stacey.” •
