Born on December 9, 1883, in Harrisonburg, Rockingham County, Virginia, Paul attended both private and public schools.

[1] Although his father, John Paul, had been a twice wounded Confederate cavalry officer during the American Civil War, he had received a pardon, then won election to the Virginia senate as a Conservative and later Re-Adjuster.

In 1911, voters from Rockingham County and surrounding areas elected Paul to the Senate of Virginia (a part time position).

[2] His successor, Ted Dalton, had been known as Virginia's "Mr. Republican" but in 1957 Virginia voters had overwhelmingly elected Democrat Lindsay Almond (whom the Byrd Organization supported) over Dalton, who in 1960 became the Western District's Chief Judge when Roby C. Thompson (who had been nominated for another vacant seat in 1957) died in Abingdon.

[3] In December 1934, Paul sat on a 3-judge panel with John J. Parker and William C. Coleman and wrote the one of the two key legal decisions which permitted creation of Shenandoah National Park.

[5] To Paul and his colleagues fell the task of implementing the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education in desegregation lawsuits in the Western District of Virginia.

[6] Paul also sat on the 3-judge panel that ordered the integration of the graduate schools of the University of Virginia in the Gregory Swanson case.