Matt Nakajima

Matt Nakajima went to law school because his mother could not. At 19 she suffered severe back injuries in a car accident, and the trial lawyer who helped her did not get the result she hoped for. A debate scholar who wanted to advocate for others, she developed progressive hearing loss at 21 and has been deaf all of Matt’s life. She pushed him to practice law “to be a voice for the voiceless.” He first took a job at Cincinnati’s biggest corporate defense firm before events redirected him.

Matt says his edge is an unwavering belief in his clients rather than the defense-side background many plaintiff lawyers carry. He does not advertise on billboards, radio or television; every case comes by word of mouth. He describes himself as not the most polished speaker but an authentic one, and he says jurors respond when they can tell a lawyer believes what he is saying. “No one’s going to outwork me,” he says, a mindset he traces to the start of his practice.

Rather than a big verdict, Matt points to his first trial, which he lost. After five years of grunt work for a top trial lawyer, he tried a rear-end collision involving a rented semi, no visible property damage and a client with pre-existing conditions. He asked for $500,000 in pain and suffering; the jury awarded $95 in medical bills. He then lost four of his next six trials and nearly quit until his future wife reminded him why he became a lawyer. Those losses, he says, taught him his craft.

Matt’s closing thought is about perseverance and remembering why trial lawyers do the work. Clients arrive at the most devastating moments of their lives, facing some of the biggest insurers and corporations in the world. “As trial lawyers, we are the last line of defense against corporate greed and injustice,” he says. He urges lawyers to find the client they believe in who will never get a fair settlement offer and try that case, because when everyone tries cases, it lifts results for everyone.

Two days before Matt was to sit for the Ohio bar exam, a letter barred him over an unexplained character and fitness issue, and the big defense firm that hired him rescinded its offer. Trial lawyers Bob Sanders and Mark Schumacher took his case for free while Matt clerked for them. The fight went to the Ohio Supreme Court, where a law school associate dean who had written the court withdrew her claims under oath. Matt sat for the bar that February and joined Sanders for $10 an hour.

Matt earned his J.D. from the Salmon P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University in 2008 and holds law licenses in Ohio and Kentucky; his first employer would not pay him as a lawyer until he added the Kentucky license. He became a partner at Rittgers Rittgers & Nakajima in 2023. The firm’s office is in Lebanon, Ohio, in the Cincinnati area, and its website is rittgers.com. He belongs to the Ohio Association of Justice, the Kentucky Justice Association and the American Association of Justice.

Matt’s case results include a $7 million settlement in a delivery truck accident, a $5 million settlement for a wrongful death caused by an at-fault truck driver and a $3.5 million settlement in a landscape truck accident. He was recognized in Super Lawyers Rising Stars from 2013 to 2022 and selected to Super Lawyers from 2023 to 2025. He says he seldom thinks about his million and multimillion-dollar verdicts; it is the early losses that still drive his preparation.