Matthew A. Rooney

Matt is a trial lawyer and commercial litigator at the major international law firm of Mayer Brown. For 30 years he was a partner in the firms Chicago offices and handled complex civil lawsuits throughout the U.S. in fields, such as antitrust, securities, banking and contract disputes, environmental law, and bankruptcy. He worked in numerous industries including energy, telecommunications, natural resources, biotech, sports, construction and manufacturing. Matt tried numerous lawsuits, both jury and bench, as well as handled arbitrations and mediations. In 1998, he was elected a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers. For the last three years that he was a partner, Matt chaired Mayer Browns Global Pro Bono Committee, which oversees the firms efforts to donate its time and resources toward advancing human rights and assisting people of limited means with legal problems. In that role, he led the firms efforts to integrate its Asian offices into the program by traveling to offices in China and Southeast Asia to educate lawyers about pro bono work.

For the past five years, Matt has made several overseas volunteer trips a year to help develop the rule of law and foster human rights in the developing world. In Iraq, he taught trial advocacy skills to better enable lawyers there to represent women and children in the court system and to bring claims on behalf of victims of torture. In South Africa, among other things, he worked with the Human Rights Commission to enhance the abilities of its lawyers to represent victims of discrimination. He taught human rights principles and trial advocacy skills to law students in Cambodia, conducted legal analysis training for human rights lawyers in Indonesia, and taught human rights and U.S. law concepts in China. Recently, in El Salvador, he conducted training for lawyers to teach them how to use international treaties to promote and protect the rights of LGBTI people. He also has worked with civil society organizations in Myanmar to help them with capacity building and made fact finding trips to Sri Lanka and Vietnam.