Rodney Smolla is dean and professor of law at the Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Va.

Previously, he was George E. Allen Professor of Law at the University of Richmond (Va.) School of Law. Before that, at the College of William and Mary, he was a law professor and director of the Institute of Bill of Rights law.

His numerous writings on freedom of speech include Free Speech in An Open Society (1986) and the legal treatise, Smolla and Nimmer on Freedom of Speech, (3rd ed. 1996), which is updated annually.

Smolla is a graduate of Yale University and Duke Law School.