Matthew Burnett
Open Society Foundations Policy Officer
New York, New York
Matthew Burnett is a policy officer for legal empowerment and the migration project lead at the Open Society Justice Initiative, which pursues strategic litigation and legal advocacy in support of the mission and values of the Open Society Foundations. Previously, Burnett was director of the Immigration Advocates Network, a groundbreaking collaboration among leading immigrant rights organizations in the United States. Prior to his work at the Immigration Advocates Network, Burnett represented asylum seekers in the U.S. 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, and a joint BA in philosophy and the comparative history of ideas. He is a member of the World Bank Taskforce on Access to Justice and Technology.