Rodney A. Smolla

RODNEY A. SMOLLA Education and Professional Positions Rod Smolla is the Dean of the School of Law at Washington and Lee University. He was previously the Dean and Allen Professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Prior to that he was the Arthur B. Hanson Professor of Law at the College of William and Mary, Marshall-Wythe School of Law. From 1988 to 1996 he was Director of the Institute of Bill of Rights Law at William and Mary. He graduated from Yale in 1975 and Duke Law School in 1978, where he was first in his class. He then served as law clerk to Judge Charles Clark on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. After practicing law in Chicago at Mayer, Brown, and Platt, he entered academic life. He has been a Professor at the University of Illinois, University of Arkansas, and DePaul University Law Schools, a Senior Fellow of the Washington Annenberg Program of Northwestern University, and a visiting Professor at the University of Melbourne, Duke University, Indiana University, and University of Denver Law Schools. Scholarship and Writing Rod Smolla is an accomplished author. His writing interests are eclectic, including law review scholarship, law school casebooks, legal treatises, university press books, trade books published for general audiences, magazine and newspaper articles, on-line publications, and fiction, including short stories and plays. Dean Smolla is the author or co-author of many books. His book Free Speech in an Open Society (Alfred A. Knopf 1992) won the William O. Douglas Award as the year’s best monograph on freedom of expression. He was the Editor of A Year in the Life of the Supreme Court (Duke University Press, 1995), which won an ABA Silver Gavel Award. His book Suing the Press: Libel, the Media, and Power (Oxford University Press 1986) won the ABA Silver Gavel Award Certificate of Merit. He is also the author of Jerry Falwell v. Larry Flynt: The First Amendment on Trial (St. Martin’s Press 1988), and Deliberate Intent (Crown Publishers 1999), which describes Dean Smolla’s involvement in the notorious Hit Man case, in which he successfully represented the families of three murder victims in a suit against the publisher of a murder instruction manual used by a hit man for instructions in carrying out the murders. The book was made into a television movie by Fox and the FX Cable Network. Dean Smolla is the author of four treatises: Smolla and Nimmer on Freedom of Speech (West Group, 2 volumes, 1996); Federal Civil Rights Acts (West Group, 2 volumes, 1994); and Law of Defamation (West Group 2nd Edition 2000, two volumes); and Law of Lawyer Advertising (2 volumes, West Group 2006). These treatises are updated by Dean Smolla twice annually. He is the author of a casebook on the First Amendment, entitled: The First Amendment: Freedom of Expression, Regulation of Mass Media, Freedom of Religion (Carolina Academic Press 1999), and co-author of a casebook on constitutional law: Constitutional Law: Structure and Rights in Our Federal System (With Professors Banks and Braveman, 5th Edition, Lexis Publishing 2005). Dean Smolla has written scores of law review articles, including articles in the University of Richmond Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the University of Virginia Law Review, the Northwestern Law Review, the University of Texas Law Review, the University of Southern California Law Review, the George Washington Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, Law and Contemporary Problems (Duke), the University of Illinois Law Review, the William and Mary Law Review, the Case Western Reserve Law Review, the Washington and Lee Law Review, the University of Oregon Law Review, Constitutional Commentary, the DePaul Law Review, the Arkansas Law Review, the Mercer Law Review, the University of Arizona Law Review, and numerous other law reviews and journals. Dean Smolla is also a frequent magazine and newspaper contributor and media commentator, appearing frequently on television and radio programs, and often quoted in newspaper, magazine, and internet news stories. He has contributed on several occasions to the New York Times Book Review, and is a regular contributor to the on-line magazine Slate.com and is a blog contributor to The Huffington Post. Teaching and Teaching Awards Rod Smolla has taught a wide range of law school subjects, including constitutional law, intellectual property law, civil rights law, first amendment law, mass communications law, torts, civil procedure, remedies, labor law, commercial paper, and jurisprudence. In his role as Dean he teaches principally in the constitutional law area. He received the University of Arkansas Alumni Distinguished Professor of the Year Award (1986) and the John Marshall Faculty Award of the College of William and Mary, Marshall-Wythe School of Law in 1996. In 2002 his teaching achievements were recognized by the State of Virginia when he received an Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. Advocacy Rod Smolla is admitted to the Illinois and Virginia state bars, and is active in litigation matters involving constitutional law, civil rights, mass media, advertising, defamation, and privacy law. He has participated as counsel or co-counsel in litigation matters in state and federal courts throughout the nation, and is a frequent advocate, having presented oral argument in numerous state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States. Dean Smolla has also served as an expert witness in litigation, and presented testimony in committees of the United States Senate, United States House of Representatives, state legislative bodies, and state and federal administrative agencies. Professional and Civic Leadership and Participation Rod Smolla is active in civic and community affairs, and in various legal, academic, and civic organizations, and he frequently speaks to community groups, church groups, youth groups, schools, and college organizations. Dean Smolla was recently recognized for his contributions to the legal profession in Virginia, by being inducted as a Fellow of the Virginia Law Foundation, and honor awarded to only 1% of the Virginia bar. He has been active in the American Association of Law Schools and in the American Bar Association. He served as Chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Defamation and Privacy Law, Chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Mass Communications Law, Chair of the Association of American Law Schools Conference on Constitutional Law, and member of the Association of American Law Schools Committee on Sections and Annual Meetings. He served on the Curriculum Committee of the American Bar Association Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, and as the American Bar Association Delegate to the Uniform Commission on State Laws Drafting Committee on uniform libel reform legislation. He has served on numerous civic, community, professional, and corporate boards. These include the Board of Directors of Media General, Inc., the American Arbitration Association, the Board of Trustees of the Council for America’s First Freedom, the Board of Directors of the Faith Leaders Initiative of 2 Richmond, the Board of Directors of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, the Board of Directors of the John Marshal Park Foundation, the Board of Directors of the Williamsburg Montessori School, the Board of the First Amendment Congress, the First Amendment Advisory Board to the Media Institute (Washington, D.C.), the Bill of Rights Institute Advisory Council (Washington, D.C.), the Advisory Committee to the Council for America’s First Freedom (Richmond), the Blue Ribbon Committee to Review Information Policy in Virginia, the Law-Related Education Project of Sweetbriar College, the American Bar Association Advisory Committee to the Forum on Mass Communications Law, the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia Legal Panel, the Association of American University Professors Committee A (Academic Freedom & Tenure); the Association of American University Professors Litigation Steering Committee, and the Virginia Bar Association Special Issues Committee. He was the Director of the Annenberg Washington Program Libel Reform Project, and author of the Annenberg Libel Reform Report that emerged from the blue ribbon task force on that project. Professional and Academic Presentations Rod Smolla is a frequent speaker in academic and professional programs at universities nationally and internationally, including the presentation of endowed university lectures, bar association programs, judicial education programs, law school programs, and programs and conferences of numerous national and international organizations. Personal and Family Life Rod Smolla is married to Michele B. Smolla. Their blended family includes five children. Rod grew up in the Chicago area, Michele on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Rod was captain of his high school football team and played football at Yale before injuring his knee. Rod and Michele are active in the school, sports, and cultural activities of their children, including periodic stints as coaches in football, basketball, soccer, baseball, and softball. 3.

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