Matthew J. Lawlor is an attorney with Robinson & Cole in the firm's Boston office. He is a member of the LandLaw Section, where he focuses his practice on representing developers, nonprofits, municipalities, commercial landlords and tenants, and industry and advocacy groups in matters involving transit-oriented and mixed-use development, commercial real estate development and leasing, and land use and planning law. His experience includes obtaining permits and land use entitlements for developers of large-scale, mixed-use projects, as well as drafting new land use regulatory provisions, including form-based codes, for municipalities. Mr. Lawlor regularly advises a national real estate organization on land use initiatives and trends across the country. In addition to authoring or coauthoring several articles, serving as a faculty member at continuing education seminars, and presenting at multiple conferences on the related topics of land use regulation, New Urbanism, and smart growth, he also coauthored two chapters in A Legal Guide to Urban and Sustainable Development for Planners, Developers, and Architects, published by John Wiley & Sons in 2008.

Mr. Lawlor is a cochair of the Boston Bar Association’s Land Use and Development Committee. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors and as corporate counsel for the Southwest Boston Community Development Corporation, a community-based nonprofit serving the Boston neighborhoods of Hyde Park and Roslindale. Mr. Lawlor also works extensively with the firm's representation of the Congress for the New Urbanism/New England Chapter as that organization's pro bono counsel and treasurer. Before attending law school, Mr. Lawlor worked for Comsis Corporation in Silver Spring, Maryland, as a consulting transportation planner for local and state governments. Mr. Lawlor achieved CNU-Accredited status in 2009 from the Congress for the New Urbanism.

Mr. Lawlor earned his J.D. from Boston College Law School, where he served as a co-managing editor of the Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review. He also holds a master of regional planning from the Department of City & Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he concentrated in land use and transportation and was awarded the Louise Venable Coker Award for the Most Outstanding Masters Project, and a B.A. in history, cum laude, from Amherst College.