Matthew Aaron Shirk (born July 9, 1973) is an American lawyer and served as the public defender for Florida's Fourth Judicial Circuit.

Shirk graduated from Western Illinois University with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1997, and subsequently moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where he earned a J.D.

[3] Shirk married Sarah Maria Purdy on March 13, 1999[4] and was admitted to the Florida Bar on April 12, 2000,[5] and then worked for five years as an Assistant Public Defender (APD) in the Fourth Judicial Circuit Court.

[6] He left the Public Defender's office and was associated with the Jacksonville law firm of Tassone & Eler for almost two years before opening a private practice with William Durden III in November 2006.

[8] The win was considered an upset, partly because it was the first time a Republican had run for the office since the state of Florida established the position in 1963.

[16] Following that dissension in the Public Defenders office, the incident was investigated by a grand jury which asked him to resign immediately for his activities in that scandal and other reasons.

[18] In August 2022 the Florida Supreme Court unanimously approved suspending Shirk from practicing law for one year.