Matthew J Norton

Practice Areas

Matt Norton is the lead practice area leader for the firm's Real Estate practice. He maintains an international practice and concentrates his efforts in the areas of corporate and real estate related transactions and financings, cross-border investment, and commercial and residential real estate development, with a particular focus on resort and hospitality transactions and projects. He assists clients with the sale, acquisition, development, repositioning, and/or financing of projects in the United States, Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, and Asia.

Matt is a founding partner of the firm’s Charleston, SC office and spearheads the firm’s global resort, hospitality and leisure practice. He also chairs the firm’s Caribbean practice and has worked extensively throughout Latin America and the Caribbean basin.

Matt regularly represents clients in structuring and documenting resort, urban, and other planned and mixed-use communities, which may include condominiums, condo hotels, shared ownership products, private clubs, golf courses, hotels, beach amenities and clubs, marinas, spas, and public use spaces.

Matt has significant experience working in hotel law, including the preparation and negotiation of hotel management agreements, franchise and license agreements, along with handling the sale, acquisition, and financing of hotels.

Additionally, Matt has extensive experience working with public REITS and has handled a significant amount of transactional and development work for both a publicly traded golf REIT and publicly traded medical office REIT.

Matt is included in Chambers and Partners USA: America’s Leading Lawyers, Woodward/White’s The Best Lawyers in America, South Carolina Super Lawyers list, and has maintained a Martindale Hubbell AV Rating since 2001. He has also been the author of the South Carolina chapter of the Chambers Real Estate USA Regional Guide since 2019.

Matt is also very active in the Urban Land Institute where he is currently a member of the ULI South Carolina Governance Committee and Vice Chair of the ULI Recreational Development Council (Red Flight), a national product council focusing on the resort real estate and hospitality industries. Further, he is a founding Advisory Board Member of the HVS Caribbean Hotel Investment Conference and Operations Summit (CHICOS) and has extensive experience working on resort and hotel projects throughout the Caribbean.

Matt is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of South Carolina School of Law, where he was the Editor in Chief of the South Carolina Law Review.

Recent editions of Chambers and Partners USA have stated that Matt “is well respected for his work in the hospitality resort area, and maintains an impressive global commercial real estate practice." Clients agree that he is “always up to date,” and note that he is “very responsive and always willing and able to help.” "He really gives great advice. He has a very good understanding of what is in the best interest of clients, and fights for what we may need for the future.” Finally, a client noted that his qualities include "extensive subject matter expertise, responsiveness and efficiency."

Professional Memberships

Member, Urban Land Institute South Carolina Governance Committee, 2016-2021

Member, Urban Land Institute South Carolina Management Committee, 2010-2015

Chairman, Urban Land Institute South Carolina Coastal Division, 2010-2013

Vice Chair, Urban Land Institute Recreational Development Council (Red Flight), Member since 2009

Member, Urban Land Institute South Carolina Capital Markets Conference Advisory Board, 2009-2021

Conference Chair, 2009-2019

HVS Caribbean Hotel Investment Conference and Operations Summit (CHICOS), 2011-2021

Member, Board of Advisors, 2011-2021

Chair, Task Force called “Improving Legal Infrastructure to Promote Development in the Caribbean Region,” 2012-2014

Publications

Author, Chambers Real Estate USA Regional Guide – South Carolina Chapter, 2019-2022

AFIRE Guide to US Real Estate Investing, co-author of “Chapter 4 - Stages of an Acquisition: Letter of Intent, Contract of Sale, and Closing.” 2017

“Anguilla: Paradise for Lawyers,” www.anguillanews.com, 19 May 2011

“Tourism Dollars: Sweeter than Sugar for Developers,” Charleston Regional Business Journal, 3 August 2009

Education