Biography
Brian Gallini is Dean and Professor of Law at the College of Law. Since he joined the College in March of 2020, the law school has recruited the largest and most academically well-credentialed 1L class in more than a decade, secured the second-largest gift in the College of Law’s history, posted the highest ten-month gold standard employment numbers on the West Coast, and has committed itself to critically evaluating its approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Under his leadership, the College of Law successfully recruited the largest faculty cohort in years, bringing on new faculty members to build out and expand the College's experiential curriculum. Through Gallini’s service on Oregon’s Alternatives to Bar Exam Task Force, he has also facilitated national conversations about reform to attorney licensure.
Gallini previously served in a variety of administrative roles while on the faculty at the University of Arkansas School of Law teaching courses in criminal law and procedure. Among his administrative leadership appointments, he served as director of distance learning initiatives, senior associate dean for faculty and associate dean for research and faculty development.
Gallini is a leading scholar in criminal law and has developed seminars, taught overseas, and is regularly interviewed by local, state, national, and international media outlets to provide expert legal commentary. His scholarship focuses on law enforcement discretion issues in the context of interrogation methods, consent searches, and profiling. His work has been published in some of the nation’s top law journals, including the Washington Law Review, Hastings Law Journal, the George Mason Law Review--among others. That work is regularly cited by courts, recognized in legal blogs, and discussed in the media. His expert commentary has appeared in worldwide media outlets like ABC News, the Associated Press, the L.A. Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He is also the two-time winner of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools Call-for-Papers competition and, in 2017, was named the Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award Winner.
Gallini serves on ABA site-inspection teams, as an AccessLex liaison regarding student service initiatives, and remains active in a number of Association of American Law Schools and Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) committees.
Outside of academia, Gallini served for more than a decade as the head coach for two men’s college ice hockey teams, compiling more than two-hundred wins during separate tenures with the University of Pennsylvania (2006-08) and Arkansas (2009-18). While coaching at Arkansas, he amassed five conference titles, three appearances at the Division III National Tournament, and was voted the 2013-14 SECHC Coach of the Year. Gallini lives in Salem with his wife Beth, their two sons, Braxton (9) and Caden (9), and Atlas, their anxious Weimaraner who often disrupts Zoom calls.