Joseph L. Hull. A member of the representative law firm of West, Hull & Hagan, of Oklahoma City, Mr. Hull has achieved much along the line of his profession during the period of his residence in Oklahoma, especially through his effective service as assistant attorney general of the state, further distinction being his also through the able assistance which he rendered in the work of annotating the statutory laws of this new commonwealth. He has maintained his home in Oklahoma City since 1910 and has been concerned with important litigations in which he has fully demonstrated his broad and accurate knowledge of the science of jurisprudence and also his versatility as a trial lawyer.

A scion of a distinguished old southern family of prominent collateral relations, Mr. Hull was born in the fine little city of Athens, Georgia, on the 6th of May, 1885, and is a son of Augustus L. and Callie (Cobb) Hull, the latter’s sister having become the wife of Hon. Hoke Smith, former governor of Georgia and present representative of that commonwealth in the United States Senate. The father of Mr. Hull was -likewise born and reared in Georgia, is a man of high intellectual attainments, served for a number of years as secretary and treasurer of the University of Georgia, at Athens, and is the author of several historical works of enduring interest and value, including one entitled “Campaigns in the Confederate Army,” and another entitled “Annals of Athens.” Justice Joseph Henry Lumpkin, maternal great-grandfather of him whose name introduces this article, was the first chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia and in that state a county was named in his honor. Thomas R. R. Cobb, maternal grandfather of Mr. Hull, was the author of a codification of the laws of Georgia and one of the authors of the constitutions of the Confederate States of America, he having been a leading member of the Georgia bar and prominent in the affairs of the Confederate government during the period of the Civil war. The maternal ancestral record of Mr. Hull shows many names prominent in professional and military life, and his mother is affiliated with the distinguished organization of southern women known as the Daughters of R. E. Lee. Mr. Hull has three brothers and three sisters: Marion is a representative physician and surgeon in the city of Atlanta, Georgia; Harry is engaged in the real estate business at Athens, that state; Augustus L., Jr., is reporter in the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, at Guthrie; Mrs. William H. Poe is a resident of New Mexico, where her husband is presiding on the bench of the United States District Court; and Mrs. Philip Weltner and Miss Callie Hull reside in the City of Atlanta.

After duly availing himself of the advantages of the public schools of his native state Joseph L. Hull was for three and one-half years a student in the University of Georgia, one year of this period having been passed in the law department. He was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1905, shortly after leaving the university, and thereafter he was engaged in the general practice of his profession at Athens, that state, until 1910, when he came to the State of Oklahoma and established his residence in Oklahoma City, where his first important work was that of assisting Clinton O. Bunn in the official annotating of the statute* of the new commonwealth. In April, 1912, he was appointed special assistant attorney-general of the state, under the regime of Attorney-General Charles West, and on the 1st of July of the following year he was made a regular assistant. He was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court on the 13th of October, 1914, and while serving as assistant attorney-general he was the effective coadjutor of the attorney-general in arguing before the Oklahoma Supreme Court a case involving the state banking board, the court holding that a suit against this board was an action brought against the state itself, this being the contention made by the attorney-general and his assistants in the presentation of the case. As assistant attorney-general Mr. Hull was prominently concerned in the presentation of other important causes in behalf of the state, and his labors in this office tended greatly to the furtherance of his professional prestige and success after he had resumed the private practice of law.

As may be inferred, Mr. Hull is a stalwart advocate of the principles and policies for which the democratic party stands sponsor. He and his wife are members of the Presbyterian Church, South, and at the University of Georgia he became affiliated with the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity, and also with the Delta Theta Pi Fraternity of the law department.

At Oklahoma City, on the 23d of October, 1912, was solemnized the marriage 6f Mr. Hull to Miss Lucille Kirkpatrick, whose father served as controller of the United States sub-treasury in the city of New Orleans under the administration of President Cleveland. Mr. and Mrs. Hull have one child, Alyce Lucille.