Matthew brings a broad range of experience to the firm. Prior to his legal career, he spent twelve years as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician in the United States Air Force. Matthew is a decorated combat veteran with two tours to Iraq and two tours to Afghanistan. He earned aBachelor of Arts in English and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing while still enlisted.
After his honorable discharge, he attended the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison, Wisconsin, where he studied in numerous legal clinics in the renowned Frank J. Remington Center, representing clients as a student attorney as part of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, the Criminal Appeals Project, the Public Defender Project, and the Juvenile Life Without Parole Project.
Matthew moved to Houston immediately after law school and worked as Research and Writing Counsel at Gulf Region Advocacy Center (GRACE), a non-profit devoted to Capital Defense for indigent clients facing the death penalty. He then opened and ran his own firm for a few years, primarily representing clients in appeals and post-conviction stages. He then joined Parlatore Law Group as Counsel, making Partner soon after. At Parlatore Law Group, in addition to his continued criminal defense cases, he gained valuable experience in military courts representing servicemembers, in civil litigation in both state and federal courts, in nonprofit representation, and in entertainment law. Matthew joined Looney, Smith & Conrad in February of 2024.
In addition to directly representing clients, Mr. Hefti has been qualified as an expert and provided expert testimony in explosives cases in multiple jurisdictions, state and federal based on his background as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician. Numerous state and federal court jurisdictions have also appointed Mr. Hefti as an independent consulting expert for defense teams on significant issues related to post-blast investigations, explosives, and improvised explosive devices in high-profile bombings.
Mr. Hefti is both a skilled teacher and an eager student. He is a regular public speaker and continuing legal education instructor. He has presented courses at capital defense and criminal defense seminars on subjects such as junk science, wrongful convictions, the use of forensic experts and forensic evidence, mitigation investigation, sentencing narratives, and equal access to justice litigation for indigent defendants. Notable seminars and programs he attended as a student include the Tim Evans Trial College in Texas and the Anthony G. Amsterdam Supreme Court Advocacy Institute at New York University School of Law.
Among other professional organizations, he is a member of the Texas Bar College, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, and Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association. He also maintains membership in professional organizations in disciplines other than the law, some of which include the Authors Guild, the Writespace Faculty, and the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators. Mr. Hefti is a lifetime member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
He currently lives with his wife and three children in Houston, TX. Outside of his legal practice, Mr. Hefti is active in the arts. He is the author of A Hard and Heavy Thing (Gallery / Simon & Schuster 2016), which was named one of the Top Ten Books of the Year by Military Times, one of the Top Ten First Novels of the Year by Booklist, and one of the Great Group Reads selections by the Women’s National Book Association. His shorter works of fiction, nonfiction, scholarship, and poetry have been published in books and periodicals in print and online. Mr. Hefti is a co-founder of Wrath-Bearing Tree, a charitable, literary, and educational Texas Nonprofit Corporation and long-running online literary journal at www.wrath-bearingtree.com. He is also an active leader within his local church.
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