Matthew R. Hall serves as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the School of Law.  He is also the Faculty Advisor for the Moot Court Board.  He teaches Criminal Law to first-year students and Criminal Procedure for upper level students.   You will also find Dean Hall offering Trial Practice during May Intersession.  In addition to his law classes, Dean Hall teaches Intelligence Communications for undergraduates enrolled in the University’s Intelligence and Security Studies program.  For students at the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, Dean Hall offers a section of Introduction to American Law and Reasoning.  Over the years, Dean Hall has taught Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, Immigration Law, Legislation, National Security Law, Property, and a seminar on Future Law.  Dean Hall’s scholarly interests focus on the intersection of immigration law, criminal law and procedure, and national security law.  Recently, however, he published an article working to reconcile civil disobedience and the rule of law.

Before joining the faculty in 2001, Professor Hall worked as an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served in the Civil Division’s Office of Immigration Litigation and specialized in national security and counter-terrorism matters. Professor Hall obtained his position at Justice through the Attorney General’s Honors Program. While with the Justice Department, Professor Hall worked on certiorari oppositions before the U.S. Supreme Court; he handled appeals in nine of the U.S. Courts of Appeals and litigated cases in a dozen different U.S. District Courts.

Prior to joining the Department of Justice, Professor Hall held two clerkships with federal judges. First, he served as a judicial clerk for Judge Terence T. Evans, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He then clerked for Judge John G. Heyburn II, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky.

Professor Hall received his J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of Kentucky College of Law, where he graduated Order of the Coif. In law school, he earned a spot on the Moot Court Board and he was Editor-in-Chief of the Kentucky Law Journal. Professor Hall received his B.A., cum laude, from Harvard University, where he studied Government.