Martin J. Siegel was born and raised in Houston. He earned a B.A., Highest Honors, from the University of Texas at Austin in 1988, where he majored in the Plan II Liberal Arts Honors Program and graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

Siegel received his law degree, cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1991. Following law school, he served as law clerk to the Honorable Irving R. Kaufman on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York City.

From 1992 to 1994, Siegel was an associate in the Washington, DC office of Jenner & Block. At Jenner, he worked on appellate, commercial, intellectual property and environmental matters.

From 1995 to 2000, Siegel served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Civil Division in the Southern District of New York, where his practice focused on bringing civil rights actions, defending statutes from constitutional challenge, and defending federal agencies and officers from suits based on government action. Civil rights cases brought by Siegel include a complaint under the Voting Rights Act following fraud in a Bronx school board vote, resulting in a new election; an action based on discriminatory zoning in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act; and an investigation of the New York City Parks Department for employment discrimination based on race. In a case of first impression, Siegel successfully defended provisions of the 1996 immigration and welfare reform laws invalidating local rules against disclosing the immigration status of aliens to federal law enforcement from constitutional attack under the 10th Amendment brought by New York City. See City of New York and Rudolph Giuliani v. United States and Janet Reno, 179 F.3d 29 (2d Cir. 1999).

In all, Siegel tried eight cases in federal district court and briefed and argued twelve appeals to the Second Circuit. He received the Department of Justice's Director's Award for Superior Performance as an Assistant United States Attorney in 1999 for the successful trial defense of the former chief of the CIA's Technical Services Division in a case involving the agency's experimentation with LSD in the early 1950s.

In 2000-01, the Department of Justice detailed Siegel to serve as Special Counsel on the minority staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee. His responsibilities included drafting and analyzing legislation on election reform, campaign finance reform, criminal justice, immigration and other issues.

In 2001, Siegel joined Watts Law Firm as a partner in Houston, where he worked on commercial, franchise, patent, trade secret, false advertising, product liability and personal injury litigation. In 2002, he successfully represented Texas beer distributors against Anheuser-Busch after it wrongfully prevented a $60 million sale of their distributorship, achieving a highly favorable confidential settlement. In 2003, he helped represent the founder of a securities trading firm forced out of the business he founded before its sale for $150 million, winning a $43 million arbitral award. In 2005, he successfully represented Stabar Enterprises, a small Austin pet products company, in multiple lawsuits arising from a licensing dispute with one of the country's largest makers of animal products, securing the dismissal of a related suit against Stabar and a favorable confidential settlement that included the sale of the company's assets.

In 2006, Siegel was one of a team of lawyers who successfully represented the Texas Democratic Party in its suit to prevent the Republican Party of Texas from replacing Tom DeLay on the general election ballot for Congress following DeLay's withdrawal as a candidate after expiration of the deadline to obtain a place on the ballot. Siegel was the primary author of TDP's briefs in the Fifth Circuit and co-argued the appeal, resulting in an order barring the untimely replacement.

In 2007, Siegel opened the Law Offices of Martin J. Siegel to focus on appellate advocacy and trial-level briefing in complex civil cases in federal and state courts. Information about the Law Offices of Martin J. Siegel can be found at Siegelfirm.com. He remains of counsel to Watts Law Firm.

In 2004 and 2007, Texas Monthly named Siegel a "Texas Super Lawyer Rising Star," an award given to lawyers under 40 chosen by other lawyers throughout the state.

Siegel has written frequently on legal topics. In 2007, he was named to the Board of Editors of Litigation, the magazine published by the ABA's Section on Litigation. Siegel's writings include several Op-Ed pieces on legal subjects in the Houston Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times. He is also author of Zealous Advocacy vs. Truth, 33 LITIGATION 31 (Fall 2006); Congressional Power over Presidential Elections: The Constitutionality of the Help America Vote Act Under Article II, Section 1, 28 VERMONT L. REV. 373 (Winter 2004), and For Better or For Worse: Adultery, Crime and the Constitution, 30 J. FAMILY L. 45 (1991-92). He has also served as an adjunct professor at the University of Houston Law Center, as a guest lecturer there and at business and graduate school classes at Princeton and UCLA, and as a speaker at CLE seminars and workshops in Houston and elsewhere.