Matt Cordon
Director of Legal Research, Associate Director of the Law Library, and Professor of Law

B.S., Central Methodist Univ.
J.D., Texas Wesleyan Univ. School of Law
M.S., Univ. of North Texas.

Two months after he began his career as a librarian at Baylor Law School in 2000, Matt Cordon had the opportunity to propose a course in Advanced Legal Research. At the time, he hoped that the course would attract at least ten students and might someday become a respected part of the Law School’s curriculum. The size of his first class in 2001 surpassed even the most optimistic expectations when it had an enrollment of 49. In the first eight years that Cordon offered the course, he had an overall enrollment of more than 600 students, averaging more than 40 students per class. Few, if any, Advanced Legal Research instructors in the United States have taught as many students as this in such a relatively short period.

“I don’t hide the fact that Advanced Legal Research is a tough, time-consuming class,” Cordon said. “I don’t think it would be beneficial at all if it were an easy class. The practical approach that Baylor Law School takes with regard to legal education helps when we are teaching skills courses. Students are accustomed to focusing on skills that they need in practice, and so those of us who teach skills classes do not have to focus so much on proving to students that skill development is beneficial.”

Cordon has since taken on the responsibility of teaching the first- and second-quarter writing and analysis courses in the Legal Analysis, Research, and Communications (LARC) program. Between the LARC and Advanced Legal Research course, Cordon typically teaches more than 100 students in each of the four quarters of the Law School’s academic year.

“These classes are always challenging to teach, which is why I like to teach them,” Cordon said. “In the LARC classes, the students begin the course at stage one and really do not know what to expect. During a five-month period, we develop their skills to the point that they should be able to produce quality work product in a practical setting. That requires a great deal of hard work on their part and on our part, but at the end of the course, it is always rewarding to see how far they have progressed.”

Cordon’s teaching responsibilities have not prevented him from producing a significant quantity of publications. Along with Professor Brandon Quarles, he is the coauthor of Researching Texas Law (2d ed. 2008) and Specialized Topics in Texas Legal Research (2005), both published by William S. Hein & Co., Inc. Researching Texas Law serves as the principal research textbook in all of the research classes at Baylor. Cordon and Quarles have also coauthored book chapters on Texas practice materials as well as historical Texas legal information.

Cordon frequently contributes to a variety of other publications. He has served as principal author of more than 1,000 encyclopedic essays for such publications as West’s Encyclopedia of American Law, Gale Encyclopedia of Everyday Law, American Law Yearbook, Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the International Directory of Business Biographies. He also regularly serves on editorial review and advisory boards.

One of his law review articles—Beyond Mere Competency: Advanced Legal Research in a Practice-Oriented Curriculum, 55 Baylor L. Rev. 1 (2003)—won a national award from the American Association of Law Libraries in 2004. During the same year, Baylor University recognized Cordon as an Outstanding Professor for Scholarship in the category of tenure-track faculty. He has additionally won young alumnus awards from both Central Methodist University (2006) and the College of Information, Library Science, and Technologies at the University of North Texas (2009).

Cordon now holds the titles of Director of Legal Research, Associate Director of the Law Library, and Professor of Law. He has been active as a faculty leader, serving as the chairman of the Faculty Senate in 2007-08, as the chairman of the University Committee on Committees, and as the member of more than a dozen campus-wide committees and work groups. He also serves as the chair of the Law School’s Student Relations Committee.

Once an aspiring sports writer, Cordon is a diehard fan of the Dallas Cowboys. He also bowls regularly, even though he does not seem to get any better at it. He and his wife, Jennifer, have two children.