Professor Keith B. Hall has been appointed Director of The LSU John P. Laborde Energy Law Center. He had been serving as Interim Director of the center for approximately a year.
“Professor Hall will be a fantastic director of the center. He is an asset to the Law Center and has already moved the Laborde Energy Law Center’s initiatives forward as the interim director; I know he has additional plans for increasing student engagement as well as other program enhancements,” says LSU Law Interim Dean Lee Ann Wheelis Lockridge. “This is an exciting time for the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center as well as for its Laborde Energy Law Center.”
Hall has been an LSU Law faculty member since 2012. As Campanile Charities Professor of Energy Law, he teaches courses in mineral rights, energy law and regulation, international petroleum transactions, and civil law property at the LSU Law Center. Hall has also served as Director of the Louisiana Mineral Law Institute at LSU Law since 2012.
“I am honored to be appointed Director of LSU’s John P. Laborde Energy Law Center. Since the center was founded seven years ago, it has done an excellent job of training law students for careers in the energy sector—whether in law firms, companies, or government,” says Hall. “Many of the center’s graduates are now seen as emerging young leaders in this field. Further, the center’s other programs, such as public lectures on important topics and continuing legal education for lawyers, have received favorable attention nationally, and even internationally.”
Hall is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences on oil and gas, energy, and environmental law, and he has also served as a consultant and expert witness on oil and gas matters in numerous states. In addition to teaching at LSU Law, he has taught energy law classes as a visiting professor at Baku State University in Azerbaijan and as an adjunct professor at Loyola School of Law in New Orleans. He is co-author of one of the two national casebooks on oil and gas law, and also is co-author of a book on the legal issues relating to hydraulic fracturing.
Before becoming an LSU Law faculty member, Hall was a member of the Stone Pigman Walther Wittmann law firm 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. Prior to that, he worked for eight years as a chemical engineer.
Hall earned a B.S. in chemical engineering at LSU in 1985 and graduated from the Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans in 1996.
The LSU John P. Laborde Energy Law Center was created in August 2012 as an academic center for comprehensive instruction and research in energy law. The first center of its kind in Louisiana, it prepares lawyers to address the full range of 21st century issues in the complex energy sector and to assume leadership roles in industry, government, nonprofits, and the academy.
“The LSU John P. Laborde Energy Law Center is a wonderful resource for Louisiana and the nation,” Hall says. “I look forward to working with our students, my colleagues, and the supporters of the Energy Law Center to make it even better and to make sure LSU remains a preeminent place for energy law education.”
