Matthew is a doctoral candidate in law at the University of Toronto. His research examines the rule of law implications of the corporate control and adjudication of consumer rights, especially with respect to consumer copyright, privacy, and freedom of expression. His doctoral project examines the manner in which Internet corporations such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook create rules and make rights-affecting decisions with worldwide impact and minimal governmental oversight. His doctoral project questions whether these law-like rules are consistent with the rule of law and the democratic control of lawmaking power, and explores the possibility of holding corporations to standards of procedural fairness, public participation and the rule of law when regulating or adjudicating consumer rights.
Prior to pursuing an academic path, Matthew was most recently an associate at Gowling Lafleur Henderson (now Gowling WLG) in the Intellectual Property department. He worked primarily within the Entertainment Law Group and the Advertising, Marketing and Regulatory Affairs Group. Prior to joining Gowlings, he volunteered his time at Advocates for Injured Workers, a legal clinic which assisted low-income clients who had been injured in the course of their employment obtain workers' compensation benefits.
He currently serves as treasurer of the Graduate Law Students Association and is the graduate representative on the Mental Health Committee at the Faculty of Law. In his spare time, Matthew has published several short stories.