Matt Sawchak focuses his practice on business litigation, antitrust, and appeals.

Business North Carolina magazine has twice profiled Mr. Sawchak as the top antitrust lawyer in North Carolina. Since 2003, that magazine has included Mr. Sawchak in its Legal Elite Hall of Fame.

Here are examples of Mr. Sawchak’s recent engagements:

• He served as an expert witness in a resale-price-maintenance case in the North Carolina Business Court.
• He acted as lead defense counsel in enforcement proceedings, filed by North Carolina’s attorney general, that challenged trade association activities. This North Carolina Business Court case raised questions of first impression under North Carolina antitrust law and under the Noerr-Pennington doctrine.
• He has represented corporate plaintiffs and defendants in federal multidistrict antitrust cases, including In re Polyester Staple Antitrust Litigation and In re Cotton Yarn Antitrust Litigation.
• He represented a North Carolina state agency in a confidential antitrust matter.
• He defended another law firm against fiduciary-duty claims threatened by a departing partner.
• He currently represents a business plaintiff in a section 1983 lawsuit against a local government outside North Carolina.
• He served as lead counsel for a trade association in disputes over the respective authority of two state agencies.
• He defends financial services companies in consumer litigation throughout North Carolina.
• He has represented potential defendants in criminal antitrust cases.
• He pursued a U.S. adversary proceeding in aid of German bankruptcy proceedings.

Mr. Sawchak has been certified as a specialist in appellate practice by the North Carolina State Bar. He regularly handles appeals in the federal and North Carolina appellate courts. Mr. Sawchak, in fact, serves on the committee that leads the appellate practice specialization in North Carolina.

Mr. Sawchak has chaired the North Carolina Bar Association’s Appellate Rules Committee, which makes recommendations to the North Carolina Supreme Court on issues of appellate procedure. He serves on the Rules Advisory Committee for the North Carolina Business Court.

Mr. Sawchak is a member of the leadership of the American Bar Association’s Antitrust Section. He is a Vice‑Chair of the Antitrust Section’s State Antitrust Enforcement Committee. He served as an editor of the American Bar Association’s State Antitrust Practice and Statutes treatise. He wrote the North Carolina chapter of that treatise in the third edition. He is also the chief editor of the current edition of the American Bar Association’s State Antitrust Enforcement Handbook.

Mr. Sawchak is profiled as a Litigation Star in the current editions of Benchmark Litigation and Benchmark Appellate. He also appears in North Carolina Super Lawyers, Chambers USA, and Best Lawyers in America. He was named as a 2012 Lawyer of the Year by Best Lawyers.

Mr. Sawchak graduated cum laude in 1984 from Harvard University, where he was a National Merit Scholar. He earned his J.D. and LL.M. with honors from Duke Law School in 1989. He was the editor-in-chief of the Duke Law Journal.

Mr. Sawchak clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas when Justice Thomas served on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Before his judicial clerkship, he clerked in the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States.

Admissions

• North Carolina, 1989
• United States District Courts
  • Eastern District of North Carolina, 1992
  • Middle District of North Carolina, 1992
  • Western District of North Carolina, 1992
• United States Supreme Court, 1993
• United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 1996

Professional associations and memberships

• North Carolina Bar Association, Past Chair of Antitrust and Trade Regulation Section and Appellate Rules Committee
• American Bar Association
  • Member of Antitrust Section Leadership
  • Member of the editorial board for State Antitrust Practice and Statutes (4th ed.)
  • Chief editor for State Antitrust Enforcement Handbook (2d ed.)
• North Carolina Business Court, Rules Advisory Committee

Prior legal experience

• Clerkship, Justice Clarence Thomas, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit