Bio
Matt is a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, after serving for 11 years as Legal Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts. At ACLUM, Matt led a team of lawyers and legal professionals in advocacy across a range of issues in both state and federal courts. Matt has argued cases that secured the release of more than 5,000 people from state prisons and jails during the COVID pandemic; temporarily halted President Trump’s first travel ban; recognized state constitutional protection for cell phone location data; and dismissed more than 61,000 wrongful drug charges in the Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan lab scandals which was the single largest dismissal of wrongful convictions in U.S. history.
Before coming to the ACLU, Matt spent four years as an assistant federal defender in North Carolina, where he argued cases in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, including a case that resulted in the reversal of numerous wrongful convictions and sentences. Matt is a graduate of Brandeis University and Yale Law School, a member of the American Law Institute, and a former clerk to Judge Raymond Fisher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Featured work
May 2, 2023
State Supreme Courts Offer the Best Chance to Advance Rights
Dec 9, 2019
Immigrants have been Denied Due Process for Years. In New England, that’s about to Change.
Jan 8, 2018
30,000 Tainted Convictions, One Path Forward
Mar 27, 2017
President Trump’s Campaign Promises Stick With Us — They Should Stick With Him, Too
Dec 1, 2016
If Cops Don’t Turn on Their Body Cameras, Courts Should Instruct Juries to Think Twice about Their Testimony
Jul 27, 2016
To Make Black Lives Matter, We Must Tear Down the Case Law that Gave Police the Power to Stop, Search, and Abuse
