HUNTSVILLE – When Butler Snow set up shop on the downtown square this year, their vantage from 100 Westside Square offers one of the best views of an innovative city on the move.
In a corner conference room overlooking the square, 256 Today sat down with Matthew Moore and Matthew Parker, two Butler Snow attorneys who share an overlap in name as well as in their deep roots to Huntsville, personally and professionally.
“It’s a vibrant, small business community – a vibrant business community in general,” Moore said. “We’ve got HudsonAlpha, we’ve got some non-defense DoD business, but the Redstone customer, in my mind, is still the heart and soul of the community.”
Parker is in good company in Huntsville, especially where industry intersects at the crossroads of science and technology. Parker, who earned his Ph.D. in biomedical sciences from the University of Florida, said he’s in the ideal place to leverage his legal background in intellectual property for clients, such as those at HudsonAlpha.
“I had a broader interest in life science in general,” said Parker, whose twin brother also became an attorney, encouraging him to study law at Emory University. He initially explored patent law, but also followed his interest in the corporate side, where he operates today.
“So it led to the blended practice,” he said. “Having that technical understanding allows you to communicate more effectively with decision makers.
“It saves time, it gives you a better understanding of their business as a whole and it allows you to advise them with credibility.”
Moore, who handles a great deal of federal regulatory work, including government contract matters, export controls and economic sanctions, and CFIUS matters (that is, foreign investment in the U.S.) for domestic and international clients, is proud to say he was born and raised in Huntsville.
“I grew up around defense contractors. My family had a government contracting shop here in town. While I was in college, before I even decided to go to law school – by osmosis or whatever – I was very in tune with this world,” Moore said. “When I got out of law school, it was just natural. I wanted to focus on making deals and helping people navigate the web of regulatory requirements.”
While Moore and Parker are closely invested in Huntsville and their client partners here, their practice areas have a global reach. Butler Snow’s Huntsville office is among 26 locations across the U.S., while the firm also has offices in London and Singapore.
The global and mission-critical nature of Moore and Parker’s work is a quiet undertone of two confident professionals who are much more interested in getting the job done than who takes credit for the end result.
“Because of the cyber threat that is everywhere, that everybody’s grappling with, the Department of Defense, the FAR Council, and the export regulators have all weighed in on the cyber threat. You’ve got all these regulations that you’re subject to,” Moore said. “It’s actually a big part of my practice just helping people understand what data they can store in a particular environment and what the requirements are.”
Moore points out that many companies engage expensive attorneys in Washington, D.C., and New York City for the same types of projects that he’s executing daily in Huntsville.
“The way I look at my business model is D.C. quality at Huntsville rates,” he said.
“We can add huge value from that. We can do anything that attorneys within the same practice area up in D.C. do, and we’ve been successful in actually doing that for clients all over the U.S. and globally.”
When it comes to D.C. quality at Huntsville rates, Moore said his fellow Huntsville attorney and partner, Daniel Wilson, is also blazing a trail for Butler Snow.
“We’re not even a full year brick and mortar in Huntsville and he’s not going anywhere anytime soon,” Moore said of Wilson. “His stock will continue to skyrocket.”
Butler Snow’s message is resonating with other attorneys in Huntsville as well. In early December 2023, Jacob Cain joined the firm’s Huntsville office. Trained as an engineer, Cain has experience as an attorney in the Army and in private practice. He is excited to apply that skillset and experience to support the firm’s Gov Con and Global Trade clients.
Parker said the work of the Huntsville office is accentuated by the firm’s top subject matter experts across the country. Within virtually every legal area, someone at the firm who has “been there, done that” is only a phone call away.
“The work goes to the best person, the one who can work on it most efficiently,” Parker said. “So it’s really like having the entire firm here in Huntsville to assist clients.”
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