Matt Clark is a bright, approachable attorney with deep knowledge and experience in advertising, marketing, entertainment, and general business law matters, including all manner of contracts and transactions.

Matt excels at the legal review of all stages of advertising and marketing creative work, from concept to pitch to execution.

With over fifteen years of experience providing general legal services, including contract review and negotiation, business affairs, and risk management, Matt can help you with a broad range of contracts and transactions with enthusiasm and creativity.

Based in Chicago, Matt focuses his practice on advertising, entertainment, and general intellectual property matters. Matt has a long history of representing many well-loved agencies, brands, advertisers, musicians, artists, authors, publishing companies, production companies, and record labels.  Representative matters include master service agreements, vendor contracts, ad purchase and media buy agreements, NDAs, talent and spokesperson agreements, licensing agreements, recording contracts, publishing agreements, performance agreements, FTC disclosures and compliance, contests and sweeps promotions, as well as USPTO “knockout” trademark clearances.  Matt particularly enjoys working with new and emerging creative talent. 

Before starting his solo practice, Matt was a partner at Culhane Meadows, the largest women-owned law firm in the country, where he provided legal services on the Advertising and Marketing, Media and Entertainment, Intellectual Property, Franchising, and Outsourced General Counsel teams.

Before becoming a partner at Culhane, Matt worked as in-house counsel in two different publicly-traded advertising agency holding companies.  Matt was the head of the legal team for Omnicom’s marketing agencies Tracy-Locke and Haygarth, where he proudly won the “Most Likely to Save Your Ass” award while managing all agency legal work for clients including S.C. Johnson, PepsiCo, Pizza Hut, Diageo, Kellogg’s, and Athletic Brewing Company. Matt was previously counsel on the legal and business affairs team that serviced Interpublic’s marketing & PR agencies Golin, Weber Shandwick, Octagon, and Current, for clients including Anheuser-Busch InBev, Milk/Chocolate Milk, Mars Global, Unilever, USPS, and Aldi.

Matt was also an adjunct professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he co-taught a class on legal and business issues faced by emerging artists, and worked as an associate on the Fed Tax and Exempt Orgs teams at KPMG.

Matt is an accomplished musician, and thereby brings a unique appreciation for his creative clients.  He’s written and recorded over a dozen albums of original music, both solo and with various artists, including two for Capitol Records and Astralwerks.  Matt has been a frequent musical contributor to the popular radio show This American Life, and has performed in multiple live stage productions of the show.  Other highlight performances include Lollapalooza, The Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago, Oprah, The Cartier Foundation, and The Lincoln Center.

Matt received a B.A. in studio art with a minor in music from The University of Iowa, while taking core classes in Iowa’s honors program. Matt received a J.D. from Washington University in St. Louis, where he was a Scholar in Law scholarship award recipient for outstanding academic achievement. Matt also received an L.L.M. in taxation from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. Matt is a proud dad to the two greatest teenagers of all time.