Matthew F. Ferraro is an attorney and former intelligence officer who writes widely on national security and legal issues.  Currently, Mr. Ferraro is a counsel at the international law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.   He counsels clients on matters related to defense and national security, cybersecurity, and crisis management.  In the international mergers and acquisitions sector, Mr. Ferraro helps clients navigate complex transactions before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).

Mr. Ferraro has broad experience in national security affairs.  Before entering the legal profession, he held a variety of staff, policy, and operational positions with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA.  At DNI, he helped drive intelligence policy during the tumultuous early years of the intelligence reform effort that followed September 11, 2001 and against the backdrop of international conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Korean Peninsula, and Iran.  He also assisted in revising the central Executive Order governing intelligence and worked on policies on information sharing, mission management, and counterintelligence, among others.  His time at the cabinet-level agency was followed by service at CIA where he worked countering WMD proliferation as part of a small inter-agency team.

He has also served in the U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Legal Advisor, as a consultant to the Royal Government of Bhutan, and as a law clerk to federal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. District Court.  A Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he has written on issues related to intelligence, national security, history, diplomacy, and law in general-interest and specialized publications.  Educated at Yale, Cambridge, and Stanford, Mr. Ferraro lives and works in Washington, D.C.

For more of Mr. Ferraro’s media hits, click here.