Matthew Morris

M.G. Morris Law focuses on one thing: helping nonprofits, their donors, and benefit corporations do more good in the world by preventing and solving their legal problems. I grew up in the Midwest. After college I flew helicopters in the Navy for ten years before going to law school. I served "one weekend a month" for another twenty years. After law school and an appellate clerkship in Indiana, I joined an Indianapolis law firm helping employers navigate employment issues. During an unexpected one-year detour to Afghanistan, I provided advice to the Afghan government on anti-corruption efforts. After coming home, I served for 11 years as an Assistant United States Attorney, trying cases before juries and arguing appeals. But my favorite part of being a prosecutor was building relationships with my clients, crime victims' advocates, and organizations that advocate for the powerless. After several years of thinking about ways that the legal industry can serve civil society better, I heard the question, "what would you do if you weren't afraid?" The answer to that question, for me, was to establish a new kind of law firm. M.G. Morris Law, P.C., is a (mostly) virtual and (mostly) paperless firm. We're not small, we're agile: there is no committee that needs to approve taking on new clients or new matters. And using the newest law firm practice management technology, I can scale my efforts in ways that traditional legal practice might not. Inspired by the example of nonprofit lawyers in other states, I have adopted new billing models that move away from the billable hour model and focus on more predictable and cost-effective billing, including subscription services and flat fees, to remove barriers to both value and communication. The billable hour model rewards inefficiency (by me) and discourages communication (by you). In our personal philanthropic life, my wife Amy and I are involved in animal rescue, blood cancer research, and disaster response.