Anthony M. “Tony” Carey, an attorney and legal ethics specialist who was a founder of the Baltimore School for the Arts, died of heart failure on Christmas at his Inner Harbor home. He was 89.

Born in Baltimore and raised on Woodholme Avenue in Pikesville, he was the son of Anthony Morris Carey Jr. and Louise Waterman Carey. His family tree included Maryland Quakers and abolitionists who supported Lillie Carroll Jackson and were members of the Mitchell family in the Civil Rights Movement.

“Despite his roots, he was totally unassuming,” said Robert C. Embry Jr., a friend and Abell Foundation chair. “His basic trait was his decency and his kindness. He was a great friend.”

He was a 1953 Gilman School graduate and the recipient of its William Cabell Bruce Jr. prize for athletics — football, wrestling and lacrosse. He earned a degree at Princeton University, where he also played sports and belonged to the Ivy Club. After service in Air Force intelligence, he graduated from Harvard Law School and, in later years, received a Johns Hopkins master’s in liberal arts.

Mr. Carey then returned to Baltimore, joined Venable, Baetjer & Howard, now Venable LLP, and became a partner. He briefly left the firm to represent the state before the Maryland Tax Court and advised a state Code of Ethics commission.

In 1967, he married Eleanor “Ellie” Mackey, the first volunteer director of the Baltimore City Department of Social Services and Maryland’s first female deputy attorney general.

He managed her campaigns for Maryland attorney general.

He served the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development for several years in the 1970s and later worked on alternative energy projects.

In 1979, he helped draft a Baltimore City Schools resolution to establish what became the Baltimore School for the Arts and form an independent Board of Overseers to staff and run the school at Cathedral and Madison streets. As the first board chair, he recruited David Simon, a former dean at the Manhattan School of Music, as the first school director.

For more than 40 years, Mr. Carey served on the Board of Overseers and was president of its supporting foundation. One of the school’s Cathedral Street buildings is named in his honor.

Leslie Shepard, the school’s former director, said, “Tony, with his dedicated, self-effacing presence, has been the school’s through line since it opened.”

At Venable, he headed the environmental and energy department, representing manufacturers, developers and public utilities on environmental law.

“Tony was friendly and warm. In some ways he was shy, but he had a great sense of humor,” said a colleague, Robert G. Smith.

In 2008, Mr. Carey retired from Venable and joined Robert Shelton to form Shelton & Carey LLP.

“Tony was a problem solver. I respected his wisdom, judgment and fairness,” said Shelton.

Mr. Carey was a trustee of the Robert Garrett Fund for the Surgical Treatment of Children, chair of a nonprofit corporation that supports the Lillie Carroll Jackson Museum and a member of the Hamilton Street Club.

He and his wife traveled widely and enjoyed downhill skiing, hiking with friends and kayaking.

Survivors include his wife of 57 years, Eleanor “Ellie” Mackey Carey, of Baltimore; and a sister, Louise Carey-Courpas, of Baltimore.

Plans for a service are pending.

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