Matt J. Malone

Matt J. Malone joined Ram Olson in 2014.

He is a skilled real estate and business litigator who has represented individuals, homeowners associations, municipalities, corporations and other real estate clients in complex construction defect litigation, both residential and commercial; defended attorneys in professional malpractice claims; and prosecuted financial fraud claims against national banks. He is also an experienced class action litigator in cases involving unfair competition and consumer protection laws, federal truth-in-lending regulations, consumer products, and data breaches.

Representative cases include:

• $13.5 million recovery for a new construction project in Emeryville.
• $4.5 million recovery for an East Bay condominium conversion, in which Mr. Malone successfully opposed a summary adjudication motion and preserved his client’s attorney’s fee claim.
• $4.35 million recovery for an East Bay condominium conversion.
• Successfully opposed several summary judgment motions on statute of limitations grounds brought against major southern California commercial landowner in construction defect action involving apartment complex. Eight-figure settlement later achieved.
• Successfully represented association client in litigation brought by a discharged prior firm seeking to use its attorney’s fee lien to delay settlement of an underlying defect case. Mr. Malone successfully moved to strike, without leave to amend, both the lien itself (for lack of consent) and the firm’s claim for contract damages and prejudgment interest, allowing settlement of the underlying action.

Mr. Malone also focuses on appellate litigation and complex law and motion work in cases throughout California at all levels. These have included challenges to municipal utility charges, coverage litigation against insurance carriers, and attacks on developer-drafted arbitration provisions in homeowners association CC&Rs. He has twice represented the Consumer Attorneys of California and the Educational Community for Homeowners (“ECHO,” formerly the Executive Council of Homeowners) before the California Supreme Court as amici curiae – most recently on behalf of the plaintiff in Beacon Residential Community Association v. Skidmore Owings & Merrill, LLP, et al., the landmark California Supreme Court case establishing an architect’s duty of care to residential purchasers and their homeowners associations.

In addition to his litigation practice with our firm, Mr. Malone also serves as a contract legal research attorney for the California Superior Court. He is a member of the American Bar Association and its Council of Appellate Lawyers, as well as the Consumer Attorneys of California and its Amicus Committee.

Representative publications by Mr. Malone include:

• “When Your CC&Rs Hate You, or How Developer Protections In Governing Documents Block Association Defect Claims,” Educational Community of Homeowners (ECHO) Journal, November 2009.
• “How As Is Isn’t How It Is: The Legal Effect of ‘As-Is’ Clauses in Association Defect Claims,” ECHO Journal, July 2010.
• “Reaching the Pinnacle: California Supreme Court Rules that CC&R Arbitration Provisions are Enforceable Against HOAs,” ECHO Journal, November 2012.
• “‘To the Supreme Court, If We Have To!’: ECHO Helps Preserve HOA Claims Against Design Professionals,” ECHO Journal, September 2014.

Mr. Malone received his J.D. from the University of Southern California in 2002, where he received the American Jurisprudence Award for Trial Advocacy, the American Board of Trial Advocates Award for Excellence in Trial Advocacy and the Best Brief Award in the Hale Moot Court Honors Program. He received his B.A., summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of California, Davis, where he completed a double major in Political Science and English and a triple minor in Latin, Medieval Studies and Sociology.