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Matthew D. Brown is a partner in the Cooley Godward Kronish Litigation Department and works in the San Francisco office. He has been with the Firm since 1998.
Mr. Brown's practice includes complex contract, license, and commercial disputes, intellectual property, unfair competition, Internet speech and conduct, and white-collar criminal defense. His work has often dealt with novel issues at the intersection of law and technology.
Mr. Brown represents clients in a wide array of cases in state and federal courts across the country, at both the trial and appellate levels, as well as in alternative dispute resolution proceedings. He also provides counseling to corporations and individuals to investigate, assess, and help manage potential liability risks.
Mr. Brown has been involved in several notable trials. He represented defendants in two white-collar criminal trials in the District of Massachusetts, in which the U.S. Department of Justice prosecuted executives of a national clinical laboratory company for conspiracy to defraud the Medicare program. Mr. Brown was also a member of the trial team that won bankruptcy court approval of Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s plan of reorganization under Chapter 11, the largest utility bankruptcy proceeding in U.S. history.
Mr. Brown has extensive experience managing complex cases in their pre-trial phases, including developing legal theories and strategic plans, drafting and arguing motions, working with fact and expert witnesses, and engaging in discovery. He routinely litigates document-intensive cases, and is familiar with the issues and procedures associated with electronic discovery.
In 2006, as part of a firm-sponsored program, Mr. Brown served as an Assistant District Attorney for the City and County of San Francisco, prosecuting criminal cases such as child endangerment, burglary, carrying a concealed weapon, battery, hit-and-run, and driving under the influence. He tried five cases to jury verdict, including a case in which he secured a conviction for sexual battery, requiring lifetime registration.
In addition to his trial court experience, Mr. Brown has substantial experience briefing and arguing cases in the appellate courts, including the following:
- He was an author of an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of nine emerging technology companies in MGM Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., a landmark case involving secondary liability for copyright infringement in the context of peer-to-peer file-sharing software. The brief was cited in the Court’s unanimous opinion at: 125 S. Ct. 2764, 2775 (2005). He provided commentary on the decision for an NPR news report.
- He co-authored an amicus brief and presented oral argument on behalf of over 100 California counties, cities, and municipal entities in a case in which a parent sought to hold a city liable for her minor son’s access to allegedly offensive material on the Internet using a public library computer with no blocking or filtering software. In this case of first impression, involving the interplay of First Amendment principles, the California Court of Appeal embraced our argument that the plaintiff’s state-law claims were preempted by 47 U.S.C. § 230, part of the federal Communications Decency Act, which had most often been applied to provide immunity to Internet Service Providers such as AOL. The court also agreed that § 230 immunity is not limited to tort cases or claims for monetary damages. The decision, Kathleen R. v. City of Livermore, 87 Cal. App. 4th 684 (2001), has been cited in several subsequent cases and secondary authorities on these points.
- He represented a biotechnology company in a case alleging that an anonymous poster on a Yahoo! message board disclosed confidential company information. On an issue of first impression—at the intersection of the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and California’s anti-SLAPP statute—the Cooley team achieved an appellate ruling that the client’s due process rights were violated by a trial court order that disallowed outside counsel from revealing the defendant’s identity to company executives for purposes of responding to the defendant’s anti-SLAPP motion to strike the complaint. The decision in this case, which one news report called "groundbreaking," may be found at: ViroLogic, Inc. v. Doe, Nos. A101571, A102811, 2004 WL 1941335 (Cal. Ct. App. Sep. 1, 2004).
Mr. Brown received a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1998. While in law school, he provided pro bono services to Boston-area residents, assisting criminal defendants through the Harvard Defenders program and representing tenants in Boston Housing Court through the Hale & Dorr Legal Services Center. He wrote his third-year paper on the federal copyright preemption issues associated with mass-market information licenses such as "shrinkwrap" and "click-through" software licenses.
Mr. Brown received an A.B. from Cornell University, College of Arts and Sciences, in 1992 with a major in Philosophy and concentration in Government. He graduated with distinction and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Mr. Brown is also an author of the following publications:
 EDUCATION | - Harvard Law School
J.D., 1998
Cum laude
| - Cornell University
A.B. Philosophy, 1992
With Distinction, Phi Beta Kappa
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BAR ADMISSIONS | COURT ADMISSIONS | The State Bar of California | U.S. Supreme Court U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit U.S. District Court, Northern District of California All California State Courts |
MEMBERSHIPS | The State Bar of California, Litigation & Intellectual Property Law Sections American Bar Association, Section of Litigation National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
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California—San Francisco 101 California Street 5th Floor San Francisco, CA 94111-5800 Phone: 415/693-2188 Fax: 415/693-2222 ( Download vCard) |
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