J.D., 1983, University of Texas . Hall was an articles editor of the Texas Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. After graduation for law school, he clerked for Judge Will Garwood of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and practiced law with Hughes & Luce in Austin , Texas , before joining the faculty in 1989. He teaches constitutional law, legal profession, federal trial practice, and law and literature. He has published a number of articles on the first amendment's religion clauses and on legal ethics and regularly serves as an expert witness in the area of legal ethics.

He is the author of Separating Church and State: Roger Williams and Religious Liberty (University of Illinois Press, 1998), Biographical Dictionary of American Religious Leaders (Facts on File, 2003), and Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary (Facts on File, 2001), as well as the editor of The U.S. Legal System (forthcoming, Salem Press, 2004), U.S. Law, Acts, and Treaties (Salem Press, 2003) and Magill's Legal Guide (Salem Press, 1999), and one of the consulting editors for Ready Reference: Censorship (Salem Press, 1997). From 1996 to 2003, Professor Hall served as the program coordinator for University Studies 101, an orientation course required of all freshman attending The University of Mississippi , and he is the author of the text used in the course, Entering the University (Pearson Custom Publishing, 2d ed. 2001).