Law Offices of Matthew F. Pawa, P.C.

Matt Pawa has represented governments, citizens, property owners, small businesses, environmental groups, non-profit organizations and injured persons in a wide range of cases. He has handled cases involving issues of national importance and cutting-edge legal issues. He is an award-winning legal writer. His legal articles are regularly published in law reviews and journals; he recently authored a chapter in a legal handbook on the use of common law strategies to protect the environment. He is an adjunct professor of law at Boston College Law School, where he teaches Climate Law and Policy. He has appeared as a guest speaker on the use of tort law in environmental cases at Columbia University Law School and Harvard Law School. He is a regular speaker at legal symposia and bar association meetings, including the American Law Institute-American Bar Association's annual course on global warming and the law in Washington, D.C., the ABA Section of Environment, Energy and Resources' annual meeting in Keystone, Colorado, the annual Public Interest Environmental Law conference at the University of Oregon Law School, the Institute for Energy Law, the National Lawyers Guild annual meeting, the Boston Bar Association, and others. Mr. Pawa has been quoted in numerous news outlets, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Hartford Courant, Christian Science Monitor, and Jurist. He was featured in the Bar Talk Section of The American Lawyer in November, 2007 (PDF). "Who do the lawyers at ExxonMobil gnash their teeth at in the middle of the night? Here's a nomination: Matthew Pawa, a Massachusetts litigator who has made a career out of representing the interests of the environmental movement."

Andrew Leonard, Salon
Global Warming's Erin Brockovich? He has appeared on E&E TV regarding the AEP Cases , and on the national talk radio show The Lazy Environmentalist (Sirius Satellite Radio). He was invited by Google to provide comment as a newsmaker on the Pavley Vermont trial. To read a client endorsement of Mr. Pawa, click here. You can follow Mr. Pawa on Twitter here.

Mr. Pawa pioneered the use of common law tort doctrines such as public nuisance in global warming. Mr. Pawa is lead counsel for the non-profit organizations in the AEP cases. In the oral argument in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on these cases, Mr. Pawa shared argument time with Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. He has written two law review articles and a book chapter regarding global warming that expound upon the tort theories from the AEP cases. To read more about global warming tort cases, click here . In 2003 Mr. Pawa filed the first MTBE case on behalf of a state, New Hampshire. To read more about New Hampshire's case and about MTBE litigation, click here.

Mr. Pawa has jury trial experience and has handled numerous hearings in state and federal courts. In his first civil case, Mr. Pawa obtained a court order striking down a state automobile tax as unconstitutional because it unfairly taxed non-residents while exempting the state's own residents. Mr. Pawa has filed briefs in two cases in the U.S. Supreme Court. In Free v. Abbott Laboratories, No. 99-391 (1999), Mr. Pawa filed a successful petition convincing the Supreme Court to hear a case involving complex issues of federal court jurisdiction. In City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997), Mr. Pawa represented the American Bar Association as amicus curiae in a case addressing the constitutionality of a federal religious freedom statute.

Mr. Pawa began his legal career as a prosecutor in Burlington, Vermont. As a Deputy State's Attorney, he handled a notable case on behalf of the State in 1996, the "Valentine's Day rape" in which the victim had been followed from a bar, severely beaten, left for dead, but somehow survived a night of freezing temperatures while unconscious. A male suspect in his 20s who lived in his parents' home was quickly identified by the police. The parents were called for questioning at an inquest, which is similar to a grand jury but is in front of a judge. At the inquest, however, the parents refused to answer questions and claimed a novel privilege for parent-child conversations. Mr. Pawa defeated their claim of privilege in the trial court and, when they continued to refuse to answer questions, the trial court held them in contempt and jailed them. The parents pursued an emergency appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court. Mr. Pawa briefed and argued the expedited appeal in the Vermont Supreme Court on behalf of the State, and the State prevailed. The parents eventually cooperated and the suspect subsequently pleaded guilty and is serving a lengthy prison term. Click here to read the Vermont Supreme Court opinion on this novel issue of law, In re Inquest Proceedings, 676 A.2d 790, 165 Vt. 549 (1996). To read a front-page Los Angeles Times newspaper article on this case and Mr. Pawa's role, click here (PDF).

Mr. Pawa received the national Scribes Award in 1993 for clarity force and style in legal writing and the University of Pennsylvania Law School's Leebron Prize for excellence in constitutional law writing. He was an Associate Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 1992-1993. He is a member of the American Bar Association, the Massachusetts Bar Association, the American Association for Justice, and the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys. He attended Cornell University (B.S. with distinction, 1987) and the University of Pennsylvania (J.D. cum laude, 1993).

Bar Memberships

• Massachusetts
• District of Columbia
• Vermont
• Pennsylvania (inactive)

Publications

• Mathew F. Pawa, Global Warming Litigation Heats Up (PDF) - TRIAL Magazine, April, 2008
• Global Warming: The Ultimate Public Nuisance, Chapter in CREATIVE COMMON LAW STRATEGIES FOR PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT (Environmental Law Institute 2007).
• Behind the Curve: the National Media's Reporting on Global Warming, 33 B.C. ENVTL. AFF. L. REV. 485 (2006) (co-authored with Benjamin A. Krass).
• Global Warming as a Public Nuisance: Connecticut v. American Electric Power, 16 FORDHAM ENVTL. LAW REV. 407 (2005) (co-authored with Benjamin A. Krass).
• When the Supreme Court Restricts Constitutional Rights, Can Congress Save Us? An Examination of Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, 141 U. PENN. L. REV. 1029 (1993).

To read a client statement about Mr. Pawa, click here.