Matthew R. Fogt

Matt is a multidimensional dealmaker. He combines land use, real estate, environmental, natural resource, and energy law knowledge with business acumen, negotiation skills, and rigor to address California real estate development projects from all angles. He works to get the best terms and provisions in land use entitlements and real estate transactions while managing client investment and project constraints, and takes the necessary steps to ensure his clients’ developments can proceed in a timely manner, following acquisition.

The breadth of Matt’s experience provides unique efficiency and value for serious developers. Clients such as Rockefeller Group, Five Point Communities, Irvine Company, Kilroy Realty, Goodman, Regent Properties, MBK, and dozens more public and private entities rely on Matt’s multiple talents when acquiring, financing, entitling, developing, or redeveloping a broad range of asset types—from master-planned communities, commercial properties (office, industrial, retail), apartments, renewable energy facilities, and mixed-use projects, to airports, resource extraction, self-storage, and auto dealerships.

Matt advises clients on a broad range of issues including the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), state and federal resource permits, subdivision mapping, public finance, affordable housing, environmental restrictions, impact fee disputes, utility service, eminent domain, construction and consultant agreement, conservation easements, and development agreements, to name a few. He also regularly advises clients regarding prevailing wage issues and complex CC&Rs and easements. Matt is skilled at public hearings and working with government agencies to obtain necessary approvals for his clients' projects.

Matt resides in Irvine with his wife and five children. He volunteers with the Boy Scouts of America and his church's youth program. He is also a coach for youth soccer, football, and softball teams.

Prior to law school, Matt worked for the United States Forest Service on planning issues. During law school, Matt was an editor on the Brigham Young University Law Review, President of the Natural Resource Law Society, Civil Chair of the Government and Politics Legal Society, a counselor in the Academic Success Program, and a pupil in the American Inns of Court.

During law school, Matt externed for the Honorable Matt B. Durrant of the Utah Supreme Court, the Honorable Bruce S. Jenkins of the United States District Court for the District of Utah, and for the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Utah.

During college, Matt took a two-year break to volunteer as a Spanish-speaking missionary in eastern Washington State, where he worked primarily with migratory farm workers and Native American communities.