Prior to his current post, Dean Smolla was dean and George E. Allen Professor of Law at the University of Richmond School of Law. He was also at the College of William and Mary School of Law, where he occupied the Arthur B. Hanson Professorship of Law and was director of the Institute of Bill of Rights Law. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Denver, University of Indiana, and Duke University law schools. He began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Charles Clark on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Dean Smolla was awarded a J.D., first in his class, Order of the Coif, at Duke University School of Law in 1978, and also received the American Jurisprudence Awards in Torts and Constitutional Law. In 1975 received his B.A. degree in American studies, cum laude, from Yale University.

Dean Smolla writes and speaks extensively on constitutional law issues, and is also active in litigation matters involving constitutional law. His writing has been nationally recognized with awards including the William O. Douglas Prize for Most Distinguished Monograph in Freedom of Expression (1992), and the American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award Certificate of Merit.

He was the Director of the Annenberg Washington Program Libel Reform Project and author of the Annenberg Libel Reform Report. He served as an American Bar Association Delegate to the Uniform Commission on State Laws Drafting Committee, and on the First Amendment Advisory Board to the Media Institute.

In 2002 Dean Smolla received an Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.