In Oregon, he helped codify the laws of the state and assisted in the foundation of the Multnomah County Library in Portland.

[3] Deady then returned to Wheeling to live with his father while attending school and working in a local music shop.

[3] Matthew Deady spent the next four years working for his father on the family farm, engaged in manual labor, while also reading extensively in his spare time.

[2] Beginning in 1843, Deady attended Barnesville Academy, continuing his education there until four months beyond the time that his blacksmith apprenticeship ended.

[2] He read law in St. Clairsville, Ohio, under the guidance of judge and former Congressman William Kennon.

[3] Deady passed the Ohio bar on October 26, 1847, and began practicing law in St. Clairsville at the office of Henry Kennon.

In March 1850, he began practicing law in Oregon, appearing for three cases before judge Orville C. Pratt held at a local tavern.

After receiving payment for his services, he sent $100 back to Ohio to Henry Kennon to pay off some debt.

[2] While working at the store he sold many supplies to the local Native Americans and learned some Chinook jargon from them.

[7] Wimple was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death, but was hanged only after being recaptured from a jail break.

[7] In 1852, Deady was among many legal minds and politicians in the territory such as Joseph C. Avery and Robert Moore that signed a petition asking Governor John P. Gaines to pardon Nimrod O'Kelly after O'Kelly's controversial conviction for the murder of Jeremiah Mahoney.

[8] He attended the session held in Oregon City beginning in December, where he met James W. Nesmith and Asahel Bush for the first time.

[2] In 1853, Obadiah McFadden delivered a commission from Franklin Pierce making Deady a justice of the Territorial Supreme Court.

[2] During this time on the court, in the Spring of 1853, he moved south to a farm in the Umpqua River valley.

[13] Following admission of the State of Oregon to the Union on February 14, 1859, Deady was nominated by President James Buchanan on March 7, 1859, to the United States District Court for the District of Oregon, to a new seat authorized by 11 Stat.

[3] Deady did the same in 1868 and 1869 since there was no circuit court judge assigned to the West Coast at that time, spending three months in San Francisco each year.

[19] In 1874, in a district court case, Deady ruled in favor of Marcus Neff in a lawsuit against Sylvester Pennoyer concerning unpaid legal fees to John H. Mitchell and a sheriff's auction of Neff's land to Pennoyer.

The case became the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision of Pennoyer v. Neff that helped define the law of personal jurisdiction.

[5] In 1885, Deady admitted Mary Leonard to the federal bar, the first woman admitted to practice in Oregon, though the Oregon Supreme Court at first denied her admittance to the state bar on technical grounds.

"[5] As a prominent figure in Portland he continually worked to raise funds for the library he supported.

He also relied on financial help from his associates in order to supplement his small salary as a federal judge.

In contravention to his earlier stances during the Oregon Constitutional Convention, Deady later denounced violence against Chinese Americans during the 1870s and 1880s, even convening a grand jury to examine charging anti-Chinese crowds with criminal acts.

In a throwback to Pennoyer v. Neff, Deady had an outsized role in the 1885 election of Mitchell, the unethical lawyer who was a centerpoint of the case.

Deady came into possession of Mitchell's love-letters from yet another affair, and exposed them to The Oregonian, who gleefully published them.

[2] Deady gave many public speeches and was a prolific writer on the law and other subjects, in addition to his national reputation in the legal field.

[24] On May 6, 2016, President of the University, Michael H. Schill set forth a collection of criteria to determine Deady's potential denaming.

In January, Schill sent a letter to the university community explaining why he would "not recommend to the Board of Trustees that it dename Deady Hall".

[25] The Board of Trustees received his report and the objections of the president of the Associated Students of the University of Oregon at its meeting on March 2, 2017.

[26] Three years later, however, on June 10, 2020, Schill sent a letter to the Board of Trustees, this time recommending the denaming of Deady Hall.