Founding Partner
Jack Smith has served as a local, national, and international prosecutor for nearly 30 years.
Mr. Smith most recently served as Special Counsel at the United States Department of Justice, wherein he was charged to investigate whether any person or entity unlawfully interfered with the transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of the Electoral College vote on January 6, 2021; and the possible unlawful possession of highly classified documents, as well as possible acts of obstruction of justice in the Southern District of Florida.
Prior to his appointment as Special Counsel, Mr. Smith was seconded by the U.S. State Department to lead the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, an international war crimes prosecutor’s office based in The Hague, Netherlands, a post he held for four years. Mr. Smith led a staff of prosecutors, investigators, analysts, and security personnel charged with investigating and prosecuting war crimes occurring in Kosovo from June 1998 through 2000. Mr. Smith personally delivered opening and closing statements on behalf of the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office for the first two trials of the court.
From 2017 to 2018, Mr. Smith served as Vice President for Litigation for a Fortune 100 healthcare company in Nashville, Tennessee, supervising a team of in-house litigation counsel and providing advice to company leadership on complex litigation issues. During that same period, he represented disabled children facing Medicare cuts by the state of Tennessee, work for which he received the Tennessee Justice Center’s Pro Bono Attorney of the Year Award.
From 2015 to 2017, Mr. Smith served as First Assistant U.S. Attorney and Acting U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee in Nashville. For five years before that, Mr. Smith served as the Chief of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section, where he led an elite unit of prosecutors investigating and litigating complex public corruption and election crimes cases throughout the United States. Before that, Mr. Smith served as the Investigations Coordinator in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. In that role, he supervised and directed sensitive investigations of foreign government officials and militia for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
Mr. Smith’s first position as a federal prosecutor was as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York. In addition to personally conducting criminal jury trials and arguing appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, he served as Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division and later as Chief of Criminal Litigation. In that role, he supervised approximately 100 prosecutors across a range of program areas including public corruption, civil rights, terrorism, violent crime, and complex financial fraud. During his service in the Eastern District of New York, Mr. Smith staffed the Federal Law Enforcement Command Center immediately following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Before becoming a federal prosecutor, Mr. Smith served for five years as an Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office, where he was a member of the Office’s sex crimes and domestic violence units and conducted numerous jury trials.
Mr. Smith has taught or appeared as a guest speaker on a variety of topics related to the justice system, including at Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, University College of London School of Law, University of Virginia School of Law, New York University School of Law, Vanderbilt Law School, George Washington University Law School, Fordham Law School, Brooklyn Law School, Belmont Law School, George Mason University, Columbia University School of Journalism, and the Yale University School of Global Affairs.
Mr. Smith’s work has been recognized with the U.S. Department of Justice Director’s Award; the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service; the Henry L. Stimson Medal from the New York County Bar Association; the Charles Rose Award from the Eastern District Association; the Federal Law Enforcement Officers’ Association Investigative Excellence Award; the NYPD Honor Legion Award; the Tennessee Justice Center’s Pro Bono Attorney of the Year Award; the Federal Bar Association’s Young Federal Attorney Award; and a Wasserstein Fellowship from Harvard Law School.