Matthew Hale (June 20, 1829 – March 25, 1897) was an American lawyer and politician from New York.

Then he studied law with his brother Robert S. Hale (1822–1881) and Orlando Kellogg in Elizabethtown, New York, was admitted to the bar in 1853, and commenced practice in Poughkeepsie.

In 1863, he returned to Elizabethtown, and practiced law in partnership with his father-in-law Augustus C. Hand (1803–1878).

[1] Afterwards he remained in Albany, and practiced law there with his brother-in-law Samuel Hand (1833–1886), and Charles S. Fairchild.

In 1886, he was appointed by Governor David B. Hill to a three-member State commission to find a more humane alternative to hanging.