Matthew T. Clayton

Associate Attorney

In 1998, “Matt” graduated from Central Washington University with a Bachelor of Science in accounting.  He worked for a municipal bond issuer in Seattle, Washington for five (5) years and is a licensed Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in California.

In 2004, Matt embarked on a 20-year career in federal law enforcement as a DEA agent within the U.S. Department of Justice, conducting criminal investigations which included historical conspiracies, wiretaps, extraditions, and Continuing Criminal Enterprise (CCE) – ‘Kingpin’ cases.  After graduating from the DEA Academy in Quantico, Virginia, where he earned a ‘Pistol Expert’ award, he began and finished his career with stints in Sacramento, California, with a 6-year diplomatic assignment to South Africa in between.  During his overseas tour, he earned a foreign law degree (LL.B.) from the University of South Africa.  Throughout his DEA career, he received several other awards, including ‘Special Agent of the Year’ in 2022 for northern California, which he was also a national finalist for in 2023.

In 2022, Matt earned a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in U.S. Law from George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, qualifying him to sit for the California Bar Exam, which he passed in February 2024.  In December 2024, after retiring from the DEA, he joined the Lenahan firm as a workers’ compensation defense attorney.

Matt was born in Phoenix, Arizona and raised on the Yakama Nation Reservation in Washington state, where he grew up working on a crop farm and was the center on a state championship football team.  Outside of work, Matt and his wife enjoy spending time with their children and grandchildren who all reside in the Sacramento area.