Fourth-year JD/MBA student, Matt Simmons spent this past summer interning at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP in Atlanta, GA and Jorden Burt LLP in Miami. During the first six weeks of the summer, Matt worked in the Business Litigation and Products Liability departments at Nelson Mullins. “I was able to attend a number of hearings and trials with several of the senior attorneys in the firm.  Additionally, I worked on a matter involving an individual suing a pharmaceutical company for failure to warn of adverse effects of a certain medication, managed a team in charge of performing a substantive document review in an asbestos suit, as well as other projects.” 

During the last eight weeks of summer, Matt interned in the litigation department at Jorden Burt  LLP and worked mainly on matters dealing with financial institutions and insurance companies.  “I was able to conduct a good amount of research in support of several criminal cases and also did quite a bit of work for the case involving the suit against the Miami-Dade School Board over the removal of the book entitled "Vamos A Cuba" from school libraries.”

Matt attributes law classes and his involvement in student organizations at UM as helping him prepare for his role at both law firms. “All of the classes I took here at UM, particularly my Legal Research and Writing and Civil Procedure courses, as well as the skills I learned by participating in Moot Court events and my Law Review editorial assignments, served to my being fully prepared for my internships.” Matt enjoyed having the ability to apply all of the things learned in law school to real world legal situations.  “Prior to these summer experiences, it was difficult at times to visualize how I would be able to utilize certain legal ideas and theories I learned here at UM.  My internships gave life to these theories and ideas, in the process bringing my legal education full circle.”

Originally from Albany, NY, Matt’s family moved to South Florida when Matt was 12 years-old. Matt attended Duke University for his undergraduate education majoring in Economics and Psychology while pursing a minor in Drama. “At Duke I was very involved in various community service programs as well as several intramural sports and actively participated in student government.”

Matt has also been very involved at UM Law School. Currently, Matt is the Vice-President of the Society of Bar & Gavel, the Spring Advanced Moot Court Vice-President for the Advanced Moot Court Board, the Executive Editor of the University of Miami Business Law Review and served as a Senator of the Student Bar Association for several years.  Matt has also been involved in and helped organize several community service programs through the HOPE Program (Helping Others through Pro Bono Efforts) and is a member of the graduate student honor fraternity Alpha Epsilon Lambda.

Among the courses that Matt has particularly enjoyed at UM law have been Civil Procedure I with Professor Alfieri, International Economic Law with Professor Swan and the Litigation Skills program.  “In whatever I do, my main goals are to gain new knowledge, meet new people and become a better person.  I feel that UM has allowed me to pursue each of these objectives to the fullest extent possible.”