[JURIST press release] JURIST Legal News and Research Services, Inc. is pleased to announce the appointment of Matthew Shames as Executive Director. In this role, Mr. Shames will oversee JURIST’s business and development efforts, including outreach and educational initiatives, fundraising, and corporate management. Mr. Shames will also serve as JURIST’s in-house general counsel.

“Matt brings to JURIST a unique combination of legal, managerial, entrepreneurial and technical experience, as well as longtime familiarity with and dedication to JURIST’s public service mission,” said Bernard Hibbitts, JURIST’s Chairman of the Board and Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. “It’s truly a thrill for me to have him back with JURIST full time as the newest member of our professional staff. I know Matt’s energy and creativity will have a tremendously positive impact on JURIST in the months and years to come as he focuses on building JURIST’s institutional base and expanding our capacity to serve a large national and international audience.”

Prior to joining JURIST, Mr. Shames worked as a transactional attorney at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, PC and Cohen & Grigsby, PC During this time, Mr. Shames focused his practice on commercial real estate development, commercial lending, emerging businesses and general corporate counseling.

Mr. Shames earned his JD from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 2005. While in law school, Mr. Shames served as Editor-in-Chief of the University of Pittsburgh Law Review. Additionally, as one of the then-handful of JURIST student staffers, Mr. Shames helped develop and prototype JURIST’s Paper Chase legal news operation and was instrumental in recruiting the first class of JURIST student news anchors for what has since become JURIST’s flagship service. He also received a Bachelor of Arts (American Civilization major, English minor) from the University of Pennsylvania in 1990.

Prior to attending law school, Mr. Shames worked for eight years in the high-technology sector in several roles, including as a programmer, project manager and consultant. Mr. Shames co-founded and served as vice-president of Interactive Ensemble, Inc., a web application development company that was based in Austin, Texas, from 1997-2001.

JURIST Legal News and Research Services, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation housed at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Commonly referred to simply as JURIST, it produces a Web-based legal news publication and real-time legal research service powered by a mostly-volunteer team of over 50 part-time law student reporters, editors and Web developers. JURIST focuses on legal issues with significant jurisprudential, social and political implications, with an emphasis on quickly locating and presenting primary source materials – the judicial decisions, legislation, testimony, reports and releases behind the legal news – so readers can evaluate those directly. Furthermore, JURIST attempts to assess and present legal news in a factual, objective and neutral manner. JURIST is produced as a public service for the continuing legal education of its readers and law student staffers.