Matthew F. Ferraro advises clients on matters related to defense and national security, cybersecurity, emerging technologies and crisis management. He also conducts internal investigations, assists clients in dealings before the US Congress, and counsels clients on a range of government contract issues.

In the mergers and acquisitions sector, Mr. Ferraro helps clients navigate complex transactions before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Representing both US sellers and foreign buyers, he assists clients in the assessment and mitigation of national security-related risks associated with potential transactions.

In addition, Mr. Ferraro provides clients with strategic counseling and advocacy before a range of governmental and regulatory bodies, including the Departments of Commerce, Defense and Treasury, among others.

In the cyber domain, Mr. Ferraro regularly works with companies to prepare for and respond to cyberattacks, including ransomware incidents. 

Mr. Ferraro counsels clients, writes, and speaks on artificial intelligence issues and the threat that digital disinformation and deepfakes pose to corporations, brands and markets—an area of practice he has termed disinformation and deepfakes risk management (DDRM). His articles on these topics have appeared in The Washington Post, CNN, Lawfare, Corporate Counsel, The Hill, Law360, Tech Policy Press, Brunswick Review and Studies in Intelligence, the CIA’s journal, among others. He also authored the chapter on disinformation and deepfakes in the ABA Cybersecurity Handbook (3rd ed.).

Mr. Ferraro has helped to prepare senior executives from an array of industries, including the aviation, energy, life sciences, technology and telecommunications sectors, for testimony before or in matters involving the US Congress.   

As part of Mr. Ferraro’s pro bono practice, he has briefed and argued cases for indigent clients before the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Constitutional and immigration issues, successfully secured a civil protective order for a client before the Superior Court of Washington DC and represented Americans wrongfully detained abroad.

Mr. Ferraro previously worked as a summer associate at WilmerHale. While attending law school, Mr. Ferraro served in the US Department of State’s Office of the Legal Advisor, as a consultant to the Royal Government of Bhutan through Stanford’s Bhutan Law and Policy Project, and as a clinic student in the Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, where he worked on certiorari petitions and amicus and merits briefs for cases before the US Supreme Court. He was elected co-president of the Stanford Law Association, his law school’s student government, and was selected as an InSITE Fellow, through which he provided legal counsel to startup companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. He also served as a judicial extern for Judge Richard J. Sullivan, then of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Mr. Ferraro is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior fellow at the National Security Institute at George Mason University, where he has also served as an adjunct professor of law. Previously, he was a 2021 Yale Cyber Leadership Forum fellow and a member of Law360’s Aerospace and Defense Editorial Advisory Board.

Before pursuing his law degree, Mr. Ferraro served for several years as an intelligence officer with the US government. He has written widely on technology, intelligence and national security issues. A full list of his publications is available here.

Selected Publications in Legal Periodicals:

• The Other Side Says Your Evidence Is A Deepfake. Now What?, Law360 (Dec. 21, 2022) (co-author)
• Disinformation and Deepfakes: The Role for Lawyers and Law Firms (ch. 14), in The ABA Cybersecurity Handbook (Jill Rhodes et al. eds, 2022)
• Deepfakes (ch. 4.A), in The American College of Trial Lawyers Handbook of Electronic Evidence (Brent Gurney et al. eds., 2022) (contributor)
• Environmental Deconfliction 2021: The National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2021, 51 Environmental Law Reporter 11025 (2021) (co-author)
• Environmental Deconfliction 2020: The National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2020, 50 Environmental Law Reporter 10983 (2020) (co-author)
• Through a Straw Darkly: Reflections on the NYU Conference “When Seeing Isn’t Believing: Deepfakes and the Law”, N.Y.U. Journal of Legislation & Public Policy Quorum (2020)
• Environmental Deconfliction 2019: The National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2019, 49 Environmental Law Reporter 10220 (2019) (co-author)
• Environmental Deconfliction: The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 and its Implications for Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources, 18 Pratt’s Energy Law Report 223 (2018) (co-author)
• Not at Home: Reining in General Personal Jurisdiction After BNSF Railway Co. v. Tyrrell, 86 Bloomberg Law Insights 1239 (2018) (co-author)
• “Groundbreaking” or Broken? An Analysis of SEC Cybersecurity Disclosure Guidance, its Effectiveness & Implications, 77 Albany Law Review 297 (2014)
• Stateless in Shangri-La: Minority Rights, Citizenship, and Belonging in Bhutan, 48 Stanford Journal of International Law 405 (2012)