Alfred Dennis Mathewson is an Emeritus Professor of Law and former Co-Dean of the University of New Mexico School of Law. He joined the faculty in 1983 after practicing corporate law in Denver, Colorado.
He earned his Bachelor of Business Administration from Howard University in 1975 and his Juris Doctor from Yale University in 1978.
Throughout his academic career, Professor Mathewson held several leadership roles. From 1997 to 2002, he served as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs. From 2009 to 2014, he was the Acting and Interim Director of the UNM Africana Studies Program.
He has primarily taught courses in business and sports law and has published extensively in both areas. He is nationally recognized for his scholarship on sports law and the application of Title IX to African American female athletes. His expertise has led him to speak at law schools across the country, including Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Wake Forest, West Virginia, and Yale.
His publications include Sports Law: A Modern Anthology (1999) (with Timothy Davis and Kenneth Shropshire), as well as numerous influential law review articles on sports law, gender equity, and intercollegiate athletics. His article on Major League Baseball’s monopoly power and the Negro Leagues is listed in the Harvard Guide to African American History.
Professor Mathewson has been an active member of the legal profession. He is a member of the American Bar Association and the American Law Institute, and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He has served as president of the New Mexico Black Lawyers Association and the Sam Cary Bar Association in Denver. He is also a member and past chair of the Section on Law and Sports of the American Association of Law Schools.
In 2009, he was named Business Lawyer of the Year by the New Mexico State Bar for his work developing the UNM School of Law’s Business and Tax Law Clinic.
Beyond scholarship and teaching, Dean Mathewson has long viewed his talents as community resources. In 2014, he organized law students to present on community input processes related to the Department of Justice settlement agreement with the City of Albuquerque concerning police use-of-force reforms. He later assembled a team of lawyers to file an amicus brief on behalf of community organizations during the federal court fairness hearing.
Since retiring from the full-time faculty, Professor Mathewson has remained active in legal education and community engagement.
