LSU Law Professor Keith Hall has been named as one of two 2025 recipients of the Clyde O. Martz Teaching Award from The Foundation for Natural Resources and Energy Law.

LSU Law Professor Keith Hall has been named as one of two 2025 recipients of the Clyde O. Martz Teaching Award from The Foundation for Natural Resources and Energy Law.

“The Foundation’s announcement of the award was a big surprise and an even greater honor,” said Hall, who joined the LSU Law faculty in 2012 and serves as director of both the John P. Laborde Energy Law Center and Mineral Law Institute at the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center. “Everyone I know who has received this award is someone I admire, so it feels incredible to be associated with them as a recipient of the Clyde O. Martz Teaching Award.”

In honoring Hall, the Foundation’s trustees noted his “distinctive background enhances his impact as a professor at LSU, where he teaches Mineral Rights, International Petroleum Transactions, Energy Law and Regulation, and Civil Law Property.”

Prior to joining the LSU Law faculty, Hall was a member of the firm Stone Pigman Walther Wittmann in New Orleans, where he practiced law for 16 years with a focus on oil and gas litigation and transactions, environmental law, and toxic tort litigation. In addition to his time in the classroom at LSU Law, he has taught energy law classes at Baku State University in Azerbaijan, the University of Pittsburgh, and Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.

“Hall is an excellent professor and an outstanding mentor,” the Foundation trustees said in a press release. “Students appreciate that his door is always open and that he brings humor into the classroom. He draws on his background as a chemical engineer and a long prior career in private law to provide students with an informed perspective on the many career paths that are available to students in the complex field of natural resources and energy law. He emphasizes to students the importance of learning from experts outside the classroom, and meeting and networking with practitioners.”

The trustees also commended Hall for regularly bringing his students to leading energy law conferences and symposia around the country, noting that since he joined the LSU Law faculty in 2012 “more of Hall’s students have attended institutes and other courses offered by the Foundation under its student travel programs than any other professor in the nation.”

Professor Keith Hall received the Foundation for Natural Resources and Energy Law’s Clyde O. Martz Teaching Award on Thursday, July 17 at the start of the 71st Annual Institute for Natural Resources and Energy Law in Whistler, British Columbia.

“Building a network of professional contacts can be very important to someone’s career in the energy sector. I enjoy giving students a head start on building a network by bringing them to conferences where I can introduce them to energy law professionals from around the nation,” said Hall, noting that he’s brought nearly 40 of his students to energy law conferences over the past year alone.

The Clyde O. Martz Teaching Award is named in honor of the foundation’s eighth president, a law professor whose 1979 casebook, Cases and Materials on the Law of Natural Resources (The Development of Public Land Law in the United States), pioneered the teaching of natural resources law and inspired generations of natural resources lawyers.

Along with Hall, University of Wyoming College of Law Prefssor Sam Kalen was selected as a 2025 recipient of the award, which was established in 1993 to recognize “those teachers and practitioner-scholars who have performed meritorious teaching of natural resources and energy law either in the classroom or through nonprofit organizations.”

In selecting Hall for the award, the trustees also noted his extensive scholarship in oil and gas law, as well as his many contributions to The Foundation for Natural Resources and Energy Law, an educational, nonprofit organization, which was founded in 1955 and is dedicated to the scholarly and practical study of all aspects of natural resources and energy law.

“Hall’s devotion to legal education is not limited to his students. The entire natural resources law community benefits from Hall’s dedication to his craft,” the trustees said. “The frequency at which he gives talks to legal professionals cannot be overstated.”

Earlier this year, in recognition of his distinguished career teaching and practicing in energy law, Hall was also selected by the Institute for Energy Law to present the Deans of Oil and Gas Practice Lecture at the 76th Annual Energy Law Conference.

Hall earned his J.D. from Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, and his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from LSU.