Nicole M. Matteo
Nicole M. Matteo is an associate in Pierce Atwood's Litigation Practice Group. She focuses her practice on representing clients involved in litigation over business, intellectual property, and contract law. To help effectuate modern business innovation and growth, Nicole concentrates on brand recognition and protecting intellectual property through copyright, trademark, and patent laws. She also has substantial experience representing clients in maritime, construction, and malpractice disputes. She has litigated, including trial and arbitration hearings, disputes involving copyright, trade secret misappropriation, UCC, Article 2 breach of contract, liability under the Jones Act and General Maritime Law, public work contracts, and malpractice.
Nicole is member of the firm’s associate liaison committee. She is also frequently involved with Roger Williams University School of Law. She is a member of the Rhode Island Bar Association for Young Lawyers, ABA Torts, Trial, and Insurance, and ABA Admiralty & Maritime Law Committee (AMLC of TIPS). She previously clerked in the Rhode Island Superior Court and in the Rhode Island Supreme Court for the Honorable Maureen McKenna Goldberg.
- Included in Best Lawyers “Ones to Watch” for Mass Tort Litigation/Class Actions - Defendants, and Mass Tort Litigation/Class Actions – Plaintiffs (2021-present)
- Named a "Rising Star" for Business Litigation in Rhode Island by Super Lawyers (2020-present)
- Recent Developments in Admiralty Law, Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Law Journal, Vol. 54, Issue 2 (Spring 2019)
- Comment, If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say, Say It Anyway: Libel Tourism & the SPEECH Act, 20 Roger WIlliams University Law Review 152 (2015)
- Workers’ Compensation, 2013 Survey of Rhode Island Law: Ellis v. Verizon New England, Inc., 19 Roger Williams University Law Review 998 (2014)
Practice Areas
- Successfully kept a legal malpractice action in arbitration over nearly half a dozen attempts to contest arbitrability (March 2021)
- Obtained summary judgment motion on a novel comparative fault defense in an accounting malpractice action pending in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island (September 2020)
- Successfully defended a motion to dismiss a First Amendment case involving commercial speech pending in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island (July 2020)
- Won a multi-million dollar jury verdict in a trade secret misappropriation case in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island (April–May 2019)