Matt Giffin

Government Experience

Matt was corporation counsel for the City of Indianapolis and Marion County, after previously serving as deputy corporation counsel. As head of the city-county government’s legal department, the Office of Corporation Counsel, Matt supervised the divisions of litigation, counseling, and the office of the city prosecutor, which employed more than 40 attorneys and staff. In addition to management skills and providing legal counsel to the mayor and other elected officials, his role involved active engagement in cases relating to the city’s policy interests, including participation in the opioid multidistrict litigation, a class action under Indiana’s franchise fees statute, appellate prisoner litigation, and civil rights cases involving constitutional and statutory claims.

On transactional matters, Matt helped develop aspects of Indianapolis’s Community Justice Campus, interlocal agreements between city-county government entities, and collective bargaining negotiations. He also handled legal aspects of the city’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic — including emergency powers, public health orders and executive response to civil unrest — as well as federal grant compliance work on the rollout of large-scale economic relief programming as part of the CARES Act and the ARP Act.

In total, Matt served in Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration for nearly five years, initially as the deputy director and legal counsel for the Office of Public Health and Safety, with responsibility for policy initiatives in areas including homelessness, food policy, violence reduction and offender re-entry. During the pandemic, Matt played a key role in the city’s COVID-19 response as the agency’s interim director.

Prior to serving the city-county government, Matt was a trial attorney in Faegre Drinker’s Indianapolis office for three years, defending clients in complex commercial litigation, internal investigations and appellate matters.

Previous to this, Matt was an attorney-advisor for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Washington, D.C., performing litigation and advisory work for the Legal Counsel Division and the U.S. Coast Guard. His responsibilities included serving as agency counsel on litigation matters and legislative affairs coordination.

Personal Interests

Outside the office, Matt enjoys travel with his wife Emily, basketball (on TV), hiking and classical music.