Mary Carole also performs independent investigations for public school districts in Arkansas and is the original investigator in Arkansas in this field, beginning in 2008 when the Code of Ethics for Arkansas Educators was enacted. In this capacity as investigator, she can be seen at public school districts around the state interviewing both students and personnel to make a fact-finding conclusion when difficult allegations are made. She prepares investigative reports for the district with suggestions of the district’s next steps.

Mary Carole grew up in Malvern and White Hall, Arkansas, and was co-valedictorian of the White Hall School District in 1998. She graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts from Ouachita Baptist University where she was president of the student body in 2002. She obtained her juris doctorate, cum laude, from the University of Mississippi in 2005 where she was on the moot court board and served as president of Phi Alpha Delta, a pre-eminent law fraternity. While at the University of Mississippi, she studied abroad at Downing College, Cambridge University, England.

In 2023, Mary Carole was appointed by the Governor of Arkansas to sit in the stead of the Chief Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court as a Special Justice of the Court in the well-known West Memphis Three case, entitled Damien Echols v. State of Arkansas.  She has since been appointed as Special Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court in multiple other cases.  Further, in 2025, the Arkansas Supreme Court appointed her to its Committee on Civil Practice.

Mary Carole is often asked to speak about her expertise, and she regularly speaks to Arkansas public school board members and superintendents including at the annual Arkansas School Boards Association conference; she is also hired to lecture individual school districts. She repeatedly presents to physicians, administrators, and nurses at local hospitals, and in 2023 she lectured the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeon (SAGES) fellows (board-certified surgeons across the United States) at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio regarding medical litigation in the United States.

Mary Carole achieved a Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review Rating™ of AV® Preeminent. She is repeatedly chosen as Best Lawyers in America by her peers. She is elected as Super Lawyer and was repeatedly elected as a Super Lawyers Rising Star. She was listed in AY Magazine, AY’s Best Lawyers in Education Law. She is a member of the Henry Woods Inn of Court, Arkansas and American Bar Associations, Pulaski County Bar Association, and Arkansas Association of Defense Counsel. She is admitted to the United States District Court, Eastern and Western Districts of Arkansas.