Paul M. Smith

Paul March Smith (born 1955) is an American attorney who has argued many important cases, most notably Lawrence v. Texas. He is currently a partner at Jenner & Block’s Washington, DC office and is a member of the firm’s Litigation Department.

Smith graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Amherst College in 1976 and received his law degree from Yale Law School in 1979, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal. In 2016, Smith was elected to the Amherst College Board of Trustees.

After law school, Smith was a law clerk to Judge James L. Oakes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. From 1980-81, Smith was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell. Smith practiced law for 13 years in Washington, D.C. with the firms of Onek, Klein & Farr and Klein, Farr, Smith & Taranto.

He had an active Supreme Court practice, including oral arguments in nineteen Supreme Court cases. These arguments have included two congressional redistricting cases, Lawrence v. Texas, involving the constitutionality of the Texas sodomy statute, United States v. American Library Association, involving a First Amendment challenge to the Children's Internet Protection Act and Mathias v. WorldCom (2001), dealing with the Eleventh Amendment immunity of state commissions. Smith also worked extensively on several other First Amendment cases in the Supreme Court, involving issues ranging from commercial speech to defamation to “adult” speech on the Internet.

Smith is also Co–Chair of Lambda Legal's National Board of Directors. Lambda Legal is a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work.

Smith was admitted to the bar in DC (on December 18, 1981), Maryland (on June 3, 1988) and New York (in 2006).