Robert M. Smith earned the designation Super Lawyer in California, and was named Alternative Dispute Resolution Lawyer in England in 2019.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, February 18, 2020 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Robert M. Smith with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Mr. Smith celebrates many years' experience in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
An esteemed attorney, recognized international mediator, and talented journalist and writer, Mr. Smith has built a prolific career, including service as Director of Mediation at the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution in London. He has also served as a Judge Pro Tempore for the San Francisco Municipal Court. Practicing law for more than 40 years, he was Senior Litigation Counsel at Bank of America in San Francisco, the principal of his own commercial litigation firm, and an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California. Mr. Smith also appeared before the International Court of Justice in United States vs. Iran. He served in the Administration of President Jimmy Carter as Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the United States and Director of the Office of Public Affairs of the U.S. Department of Justice. He was the Department's Chief Spokesperson.
Specializing in the prompt resolution of complex commercial disputes, Mr. Smith has mediated hundreds of cases across several different countries over nearly 30 years. A speaker of French, German and Spanish, he has also arbitrated cases and has numerous years of commercial trial, litigation, and negotiating experience. His commercial litigation and trial experience began while practicing at Heller, Ehrman, White and McAuliffe during the 1970s and as Senior Litigation Counsel for Bank of America, where he was responsible for overseas litigation worldwide. Mr. Smith has lectured widely, including to the United Nations International Labor Organization, the Law Society of England and Wales, the Polish National Council of Legal Advisers, the Law Society of Ireland, the Oxford Mediation Group, the American Bar Association, the FBI Academy, and the International Academy of Mediators. Additionally, he was an Academic Visitor to the Faculty of Law at the University of Oxford, where he taught a seminar on mediation theory and practice, and was a Visiting Scholar in Decision Sciences at INSEAD graduate school of business in France.
Mr. Smith wrote the 1200-page legal treatise "Alternative Dispute Resolution for Financial Institutions" in 1995, with a fourth edition in 1998, and has contributed many articles to various law journals. He is also author of "Suppressed: Confessions of a Correspondent" (2021). He served on the editorial advisory board for Bancroft-Whitney between 1991 and 1994, was an editor of the Litigation Journal of the American Bar Association and served on the Board of Editors of the Yale Law Journal. Before becoming an attorney, Mr. Smith worked as a correspondent for The New York Times in Washington and for Time magazine in New York, Chicago and the Caribbean.
Leading several community and civic initiatives in San Francisco since the mid-1980s, Mr. Smith was active on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation and the Nob Hill Association. He was later honored to serve on the Board of Directors of the Saint Francis Hospital Foundation. Mr. Smith served in the U.S. Army Reserve as a First Lieutenant (Infantry Platoon Leader).
Mr. Smith received a Bachelor of Arts, with honors, from Harvard College in 1962, followed by a diploma with distinction from the Centro de Estudios de Español in 1963. He then attended Columbia University, where he was an International Fellow. He received a Master of Arts in International Affairs in 1964 and a Master of Science in Journalism with High Honors in 1965. Several years later, upon being accepted to Yale University Law School, he earned a J.D. in 1975. Mr. Smith has been admitted to practice law by the California, New York, and D.C. Bars, as well as the Supreme Court of the United States. He is a Barrister (Inner Temple), Chartered Arbitrator, and Registered Mediator in the UK.
An elected fellow of the International Academy of Mediators and the American College of Civil Trial Mediators as well as a member of the Hong Kong Institute of Arbitrators, Mr. Smith is also co-founder and past president of The Mediation Society. He is a member of many other organizations, both in the U.S. and abroad.
Mr. Smith was the recipient of a United Press International Award for Newswriting in 1958, after which he became a student at Harvard College from 1958 until 1962, a Fulbright scholar in 1962-63, and a Columbia University International Fellow from 1964 to 1965.
Mr. Smith earned the designation Super Lawyer in California, and was named Alternative Dispute Resolution Lawyer in England in 2019.
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