Matthew Burnett is a policy officer with the Open Society Justice Initiative, where he focuses on legal empowerment, technology, and innovative financing. Previously, Burnett was director of the Immigration Advocates Network, a groundbreaking collaboration among leading immigrant rights organizations in the United States. He played a key role in launching the organization and growing it into a recognized leader on innovative approaches to increasing access to justice for immigrants and building the capacity of immigrant-serving organizations. Prior to his work at the Immigration Advocates Network, Burnett represented asylum seekers in the United States and served as law clerk to Justice Z.M. Yacoob of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Burnett holds a JD with concentrations in poverty law and public international law from Seattle University School of Law, and a joint BA in philosophy and the comparative history of ideas from the University of Washington.


Matthew Burnett will participate in the World Justice Forum working sessions Sustainable Justice: Best Practices in Justice-Sector Social Enterprises and What Will it Take to Bring Social Impact Investing to the Justice Sector?