Matthew Neely is a native of Highlands, North Carolina, and currently serves as a law librarian at the Lucille Stewart Beeson Law Library at Cumberland School of Law, where he joined in August 2025. He teaches Advanced Legal Research and contributes to the development of legal scholarship and research services.  Before joining Cumberland, Neely held the position of faculty services and scholarly communications librarian at the Bounds Law Library at the University of Alabama School of Law from 2022 to 2025. Prior to that, he served as a reference librarian at North Carolina Central University School of Law from 2018 to 2022.

Neely earned his undergraduate degree in Political Science from Western Carolina University. He completed a joint degree program at Samford University, receiving both a Master of Divinity and a Juris Doctor in December 2016. During his time at Samford, he was an editorial board member of the American Journal of Trial Advocacy and a Caruthers Fellow. He later earned a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Washington in 2018.  An active member of the professional law library community, Neely currently serves as president of the Law Libraries Association of Alabama and participates on several regional and national committees.