Attorney and Guntersville resident Matt Elliott wants to be Marshall County’s next circuit judge. Elliott qualified as a Republication in a bid to succeed retiring Marshall Circuit Judge Tim Riley.

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“Judge Riley recently informed me that he was not seeking reelection in 2024,” Elliott said. “I qualified the day after learning his plans. I wasted no time. Being a judge in my home of Marshall County has been a dream I have been working towards since my earliest days of law school.”

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Elliott is an attorney practicing law at Wilmer & Lee’s Arab office with Clint Maze and Tracy Green. Prior to law school, Elliott was an EMT/ Paramedic for more than a decade, and he spent most of that career with Marshall Medical Centers EMS.

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As a judge, Elliott said he would maintain the integrity of the Alabama judiciary and be a faithful servant of the law. He said that impartial judicial fidelity to the rule of law promotes order and makes Marshall County a place people want to live, invest, and raise their families.

Elliott and his wife, Jordan, attended law school together.

“She was a teacher, and I was a paramedic,” he said. “We had been married for three years and, after much prayer and deliberation, we decided to leave our jobs and pursue our law degrees together. It was an adventure.”

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Elliott and Jordan graduated from The University of Alabama School of Law. During their tenure at the law school, both served as editors for the law school’s flagship legal journal, the Alabama Law Review. Being a law review editor is a position reserved for the school’s most academically accomplished students.

In his second year of law school, Matt Elliott was named a Hugo Black Scholar, an award given to the top 10 percent of students in the law school class, and he graduated law school with high honors.

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Following law school, Elliott served as a judicial law clerk for U.S. District Judge H.S. Mattice in Tennessee.

“Serving my country as a federal law clerk was a great honor. It was also the most challenging and rewarding legal work that I have done in my career,” Elliott said. “While clerking, I was charged with managing a docket filled with a litany of federal lawsuits and prosecutions. There was no shortage of complex legal issues needing to be untangled and sorted out.

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“I also served as an elbow clerk in jury trials,” he continued. “I assisted Judge Mattice in managing all aspects of the jury trial process – from jury selection, to weighing evidentiary objections, and drafting jury instructions and verdict forms. The wealth of experience I gained from that role equipped me to be a better lawyer, and it will undoubtedly assist me in my role as circuit judge if I am elected.”

Following his clerkship, Elliott worked for a large regional law firm where he handled commercial litigation across the southeast. Always in the back of Elliott’s mind, however, was his longtime dream of being a judge back home.
 

“When the pandemic hit in 2020, I had time to reflect on my journey and where I wanted to be,” he said. “It was clear as always that I wanted to work in Marshall County. It just so happened that at the same time Clint Maze was looking to hire a new attorney. It worked out perfectly. God’s fingerprints are certainly on my coming home.”

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Since working with Wilmer and Lee, Elliott has had the opportunity to litigate cases in Marshall County but also in the surrounding counties and in federal court.

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“Colleagues often refer cases to me, and it results in me having cases all over the state. I have cases pending in the federal courts in Huntsville and Birmingham, Madison County, Morgan County, Cullman County, Blount County, DeKalb County, Etowah County, and even one in Montgomery County,” Elliott said. “I get to go to many different courthouses and meet many different people. It has given me the opportunity to see how different judges and courthouses operate. I have learned a lot about effective judicial management and jurist styles. I want to bring those insights to Marshall County as circuit judge.”

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In three successive years, Elliott has been nominated and voted by his peers in the bar as being a Best Lawyers “Ones to Watch” for commercial litigation, and in 2023 he was additionally given awards for appellate practice and trust and estate litigation.

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In addition to practicing law, Elliott serves on the board of directors for Marshall County Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) and Marshall County Court Appointed Juvenile Advocates (CAJA).

Elliott’s wife, Jordan Crowder Elliott, is an assistant district attorney in the Marshall County District Attorney’s Office. The couple have three children – Ilene, 7, Walt, 5, and their newest addition, Hank, 9 months.

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He and his family attend Connect Church in Guntersville.