Matthew’s professional passion is assisting land trusts and other conservation organizations to conserve open spaces. Matthew has a deep respect for the people who work hard to protect and steward natural places and their unique features. Her desire to help her clients achieve their land conservation goals motivates Matthew to provide consistent, considerate, and high-quality legal services.
Matthew earned her law degree at the University of Washington School of Law, where she focused on public interest and environmental law. Eager for practical and authentic experiences during law school, Matthew participated in the Innocence Project Northwest Clinic and interned with a non-profit river restoration organization.
Matthew served for eight years as Staff Attorney for a regional land trust that protects river corridors, wildlife habitat, agricultural lands, and community open spaces in Western Montana. In that role, Matthew worked closely with acquisitions and stewardship staff members to draft, negotiate, finalize, interpret, and enforce conservation easements. She also assisted the land trust with acquiring land to own and manage, or to transfer to conservation partners.
After serving as in-house counsel for a land trust, Matthew spent two years as a Partner with Weinberg & Hromadka, PLLC, a small law firm focused on real estate and land use matters and dedicated to pursuing public interest work with positive social, environmental, and economic impacts. During her time with Weinberg & Hromadka, Matthew deepened and broadened her experience in land conservation law by working with many land trusts in their unique communities and learning about the nuances of how land conservation unfolds in different places.
Matthew has life-long ties to the northern Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Northwest. Matthew was born in Missoula, Montana, and grew up in Portland, Oregon. Her family lives in or near Bellingham, Washington. Matthew earned a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Spanish at the University of Montana. After college, Matthew spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar in Madrid teaching English at a public elementary school and taking graduate-level classes in human rights law at a Spanish university. Matthew served for eight years on the Board of Directors of Homeword, a non-profit organization that works across Montana to create homes that people can afford and to provide homebuyer and financial education. In her free time, Matthew enjoys being with family and friends and recreating in her favorite outdoor places – Missoula’s local trails, Montana’s endless backcountry, and the coasts and mountains of the Pacific Northwest.
