JUDGE
MICHIGAN COURT OF APPEALS, LANSING
EMPLOYEES: NA
REVENUE: NA
COLLEGE: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL
Spend any time at all with Hon. Matthew Ackerman, and one thing becomes very clear: He’s funny.
Ackerman, 34, won a six-year term to the Michigan Court of Appeals in 2024, making him the youngest judge on the appellate bench. And while he’s serious about the job, he’s much less so about himself.
Looking around the room during his investiture last year, he noted all of the family, friends, and mentors in attendance, and quipped that he felt like he was at his bar mitzvah again.
While Ackerman brings the laughs, he’s serious about his career. He graduated cum laude with high honors in economics from Harvard College, and later earned a master’s degree in economics, with merit, from the London School of Economics.
“I wanted to rule other things out first,” Ackerman says with a chuckle. “I didn’t want to be pigeon-holed.”
However, Ackerman comes from a family of lawyers. His grandfather founded Ackerman & Ackerman in Bloomfield Hills, which specializes in property law. Matthew’s father joined the firm and has long provided legal services, too.
The call to attend law school was too loud to ignore, so Ackerman earned his juris doctor degree from Columbia University Law School.
While there, he was a James Kent Scholar all three years, earning him the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Prize, and he was an editor on the Columbia Law Review while in school. Instead of heading straight into the family’s practice after graduation, he clerked for U.S. Court of Appeals Judges Jerry E. Smith and Michael H. Park, as a way to show how serious he was about a legal career.
From there, hearing his father’s stories about how much he enjoyed working with his grandfather put things in a brand-new light, and he joined Ackerman & Ackerman.
“I learned a lot about the law from (my father), and those three years were fun,” he says. In fact, he and his father, Alan, still work together, as they teach a class at Michigan State University’s College of Law on eminent domain and property law.
More than a year into his tenure as an appeals court judge, Ackerman says he’s thrilled with his decision to move into public service.
“I really love appeals. You get the toughest cases,” he says. He notes that he uses the written opinions that explain the rulings to educate and inform. What’s more, given his personality, he can’t resist the chance to inject a bit of humor.
As an example, in a recent case involving a used car dealer accused of fraudulently rolling back vehicle odometers, he couldn’t help himself. He sprinkled references and lines from Roald Dahl’s “Matilda” throughout his written opinion. In the book, the father of the central character also is a used car dealer who rolls back odometers.
“I try to write something that’s easy to read, easy to follow, and funny. There are limits to how you can do that, but I try to do it when I can,” he says.
— Michael Strong
