Rodney A. Smolla is the President of the Vermont Law and Graduate School in South Royalton, Vermont. He was previously Dean and Professor of Law at the Delaware Law School of Widener University, in Wilmington, Delaware. President Smolla is the former President of Furman University, where he served from 2010 to 2013.

He was previously Dean of the School of Law at Washington and Lee University, and the Roy L. Steinheimer Professor of Law at Washington and Lee. Prior to that he was the Dean and Allen Professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, and 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.

President Smolla is the recipient of numerous teaching awards, including the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. He is also the recipient of numerous awards for his scholarship. In 2020, he was the co-recipient of the Stonecipher Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Media Law and Policy, awarded each year by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.

He has also received the American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award and the William O. Douglass prize.

Smolla has served as lead counsel presenting argument in state and federal courts throughout the nation, including the Supreme Court of the United States, and has often presented testimony in committees of the United States Senate, United States House of Representatives, state legislative bodies, and state and federal administrative agencies. He is active in civic and community affairs and in various legal, academic, and civic organizations; he frequently speaks to community groups, church groups, youth groups, schools, and college organizations.

Among his many leadership roles, Smolla served on the Board of Directors of Media General, Inc. (which owned television stations, newspapers, and Internet properties), the American Arbitration Association, and served as Chairman of the Board of the Council for America’s First Freedom, an organization dedicated to religious freedom.