Matt Gatewood

Following a federal judicial clerkship, Matt started his career at Sutherland Asbill & Brennan in 2006 after serving as a summer associate there in 2004. The firm later became Eversheds Sutherland, which grew to more than 3,000 lawyers worldwide. Matt served as a Partner for nearly a decade at the firm before opening Gatewood PLLC on September 1, 2022. 

Matt is a commercial litigator who advises clients on business strategy, litigation risk, and issues that arise in the workplace. Matt represents clients in arbitration proceedings and federal and state trial and appellate courts. 

Litigating complex commercial and workplace disputes forms the backbone of Matt’s experience. For example, he currently is lead counsel defending two putative class actions against healthcare insurers arising from cyberattacks. He recently won summary judgment for a sports agency on wage claims brought by a former marketing director and resolved a dispute between a forest owner and surface owner about respective rights to enroll 250,000-plus acres of West Virginia trees in a California carbon sequestration program.

Matt has significant experience in crisis preparedness and management, and often helps clients confront the myriad drivers of post-incident exposure by guiding strategic external and internal communications, internal investigations, and ensuing litigation. For example, Matt chaired the U.S. component of an internal investigation for a global manufacturer that required coordinating simultaneous interviews at all U.S. manufacturing sites following a whistleblower complaint about OSHA reporting and recordkeeping practices. 

Matt regularly advises clients on prospective workplace safety and product safety compliance, and counsels clients through any post-incident government investigations and enforcement actions. The foundation of Matt’s crisis management and workplace safety practice was built as a core member of the team representing the international drilling contractor involved in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill. He participated in all facets of the incident response, including the ensuing governmental investigations and multi-district litigation, which involved more than 250 depositions and culminated in a three-month trial. Matt was primarily responsible for preparing the company’s witnesses, including many of the surviving members of the Deepwater Horizon crew, for deposition and trial testimony.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Matt helped clients navigate issues with their supply chains on a daily basis. While at Eversheds, he was the primary author of a comprehensive guide examining the law of each of the 50 states on the circumstances when contractual performance may be excused, including for force majeure and common-law reasons.

For 15 years, Matt has guided organizations through the legal challenges presented in dealing with workers in the workplace. He often counsels clients on conducting internal investigations following workplace complaints, defends them in EEOC proceedings and court actions involving allegations of discrimination, and leads audits to identify gaps in compliance programs. For examples of this practice, Matt has conducted top-down audits of organizations including insurance companies and transportation providers to strengthen the independence of their relationships with the contractors with whom they conduct business and has represented companies on matters related to independent contractor classification in agency enforcement proceedings in nearly all 50 states. 

He also has experience defending insurers in approximately 60 employee benefit cases in Virginia and West Virginia federal and state courts.

He was born and raised in Charleston, West Virginia, and is a devout WVU Mountaineer. Matt and his wife have two children and a Norwich Terrier, General Ulysses S. Grant.