Matt is an Associate Principal with the Firm. He has a diverse legal background including experience leading the research, investigation, and litigation of complex commercial, administrative, civil rights and white-collar criminal proceedings. His career before joining FBMJ spanned many years at firms in the New York City metropolitan area. He relocated to Michigan with his wife and two boys in 2021.

Matt has practiced in the insurance industry, providing coverage opinions, representing primary and excess carriers in coverage disputes, and serving as monitoring and direct defense counsel in cases with significant exposure at the excess and/or umbrella level of insurance coverage. This work included coverage actions stemming from underlying petroleum spills from pipelines causing both significant bodily injury and property damage. He also represented insureds in navigating the product recall process and advised insurers on the liability exposure stemming from policies covering entities whose products had caused bodily injury to customers throughout the country. His direct defense work included product liability actions in which plaintiffs alleged significant personal injury stemming from product design and product manufacturing defects.

Matt has represented both municipalities and private entities in litigating land use and zoning disputes.

In addition, Matt has worked extensively in special education law, litigating against the New York City Department of Education in both administrative and federal proceedings to ensure the implementation of a free appropriate public education for students with special needs in all five boroughs of New York City.

For over six years, Matt worked as an associate alongside one of New York City’s top criminal defense attorneys and had significant responsibility in the defense of individuals and entities charged with white-collar crimes. In that role, he also defended individuals and entities in SEC and FINRA enforcement and disciplinary actions and handled private securities litigation disputes matters on behalf of both defrauded investors and defendants alleged to have violated federal securities laws. As an outgrowth of this experience in the securities industry, Matt also represented employees in the financial sector in negotiating severance agreements, litigating the contours and extent of non-compete agreements and securing equitable buyouts of stock options.

Before entering the private sector, Matt served as a Law Clerk to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals Staff Attorney’s Office for two years following graduation from law school. In that role, he reviewed appellate briefs as well as the factual record on appeal and wrote bench memoranda advising three-judge panels of the Court on the controlling law and operative facts in case before them.

Matt has researched the medicinal benefits of cannabis from review of articles authored by leading epilepsy experts in the United States. Over the course of several years, he gathered data and provided detailed information to aid in the Phase 2 FDA research trial for Epidiolex. This is the first FDA-approved prescription Cannabidiol (CBD) – the second most prevalent of the active ingredients of cannabis. Epidiolex is used to treat seizures associated with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS), Dravet syndrome, or tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC).

While a student at Brooklyn Law School, Matt had several internships at prominent government and public interest institutions in New York City. He worked as a Student District Attorney at the Kings County District Attorney’s Office, Gang Unit as part of Brooklyn Law School’s Prosecutor Clinic for his third year of law school.  He also interned with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Criminal Division, the Chambers of the late Judge Joseph McLaughlin on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Legal Aid Society’s Juvenile Rights Division.

In recognition of his accomplishments and experience in several practice areas, Matt was selected as a New York Super Lawyers’ Rising Star in White Collar Criminal Defense and Employment Litigation and as a New York Super Lawyer in Business Litigation and Education Litigation and has been recognized as a Michigan Super Lawyer since relocation to the state. Matt has also held Martindale-Hubbell’s AV® Preeminent rating since 2015.