Abbe Smith
Director, Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy Clinic, Professor of Law
B.A., Yale; J.D., New York University
Areas of Expertise:
Clinical Education, Criminal Law and Procedure
Abbe Smith is Director of the Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy Clinic, Co-Director of the E. Barrett Prettyman Fellowship Program, and Professor of Law at...
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Abbe Smith is Director of the Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy Clinic, Co-Director of the E. Barrett Prettyman Fellowship Program, and Professor of Law at Georgetown University. She joined the Georgetown faculty in 1996. Prior to Georgetown, Professor Smith was Deputy Director of the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School, and a Clinical Instructor and Lecturer on Law at Harvard.
Professor Smith has also taught at the City University New York School of Law, Temple University School of Law, American University Washington College of Law, and the University of Melbourne Law School (Australia), where she was a Senior Fulbright Scholar in 2005-06. Professor Smith teaches and writes on criminal defense, legal ethics, juvenile justice, and clinical legal education. In addition to numerous law journal articles, she is the author of Case of a Lifetime: A Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Story (Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), co-author with Monroe Freedman of Understanding Lawyers’ Ethics (4th ed., Lexis-Nexis, 2010), co-editor with Monroe Freedman of How Can You Represent Those People: Criminal Defense Stories (forthcoming, 2013), co-author with Charles Ogletree, et al. of Beyond the Rodney King Story: An Investigation of Police Conduct In Minority Communities (Northeastern University Press, 1994), and a contributing author of We Dissent (Michael Avery, ed., NYU Press, 2008) and Law Stories (Gary Bellow & Martha Minow, eds., University of Michigan Press, 1996).
Professor Smith began her legal career at the Defender Association of Philadelphia, where she was an Assistant Defender, a member of the Special Defense Unit, and a Senior Trial Attorney from 1982 to 1990. She continues to be actively engaged in indigent defense—as both a clinical supervisor and member of the Criminal Justice Act panel for the DC Superior Court—and frequently presents at public defender and legal aid training programs in the United States and abroad. Professor Smith is on the Board of Directors of The Bronx Defenders and the National Juvenile Defender Center, and a longtime member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the National Lawyers Guild. Court.
In 2010, she was elected to the American Board of Criminal Lawyers, an exclusive national society for outstanding criminal trial lawyers. Professor Smith is also a published cartoonist. A collection of her cartoons, Carried Away: The Chronicles of a Feminist Cartoonist, was published by Sanguinaria Publishing, Inc. in1984.
Recent Scholarship
Forthcoming Works and Works in Progress
- Abbe Smith & Monroe Freedman, How Can You Represent Those People: Criminal Defense Stories (forthcoming 2013).
- Abbe Smith, Gideon Was a Prisoner: On Criminal Defense in a Time of Mass Incarceration, 70 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. (forthcoming).
Contributions to Law Reviews and Other Scholarly Journals
- Abbe Smith, Are Prosecutors Born or Made?, 25 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 943-960 (2012). [L] [W] [Gtown Law]
- Abbe Smith, Defending Those People, 10 Ohio St. J. Crim. L. 277-301 (2012). [L] [W] [WWW]
- Abbe Smith, "No Older 'n Seventeen": Defending in Dylan Country, 38 Fordham Urb. L.J. 1471-1493 (2011). [HEIN] [L] [W]
All Scholarship 2000 - Present
Forthcoming Works and Works in Progress
- Abbe Smith & Monroe Freedman, How Can You Represent Those People: Criminal Defense Stories (forthcoming 2013).
- Abbe Smith, Gideon Was a Prisoner: On Criminal Defense in a Time of Mass Incarceration, 70 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. (forthcoming).
Books
- Abbe Smith & Monroe H. Freedman, Understanding Lawyers' Ethics (New Providence, N.J.: LexisNexis 4th ed. 2010). [BOOK]
- Abbe Smith, Case of a Lifetime: A Criminal Defense Lawyer's Story (New York: Palgrave MacMillan 2008). [BOOK]
- Abbe Smith & Monroe H. Freedman, Understanding Lawyer's Ethics (Newark, N.J.: LexisNexis/Matthew Bender 3d ed. 2004). [BOOK]
- Abbe Smith & Monroe H. Freedman, Understanding Lawyer's Ethics (Newark, N.J.: LexisNexis/Matthew Bender 2d ed. 2002). [BOOK]
Contributions to Law Reviews and Other Scholarly Journals
- Abbe Smith, Are Prosecutors Born or Made?, 25 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 943-960 (2012). [L] [W] [Gtown Law]
- Abbe Smith, Defending Those People, 10 Ohio St. J. Crim. L. 277-301 (2012). [L] [W] [WWW]
- Abbe Smith, "No Older 'n Seventeen": Defending in Dylan Country, 38 Fordham Urb. L.J. 1471-1493 (2011). [HEIN] [L] [W]
- Abbe Smith, In Praise of the Guilty Project: A Criminal Defense Lawyer's Growing Anxiety About Innocence Projects, 13 U. Pa. J.L. & Soc. Change 315-329 (2010). [W]
- Abbe Smith & Monroe H. Freedman, Misunderstanding Lawyers' Ethics, 108 Mich. L. Rev. 925-938 (2010) (reviewing Daniel Markovits, A Modern Legal Ethics: Adversary Advocacy in a Democratic Age (2008)). [HEIN] [L] [W] [WWW]
- Abbe Smith, "I Ain't Taking' No Plea": The Challenges in Counseling Young People Facing Serious Time, 60 Rutgers L. Rev. 11-31 (2007). [HEIN] [L] [W]
- Abbe Smith, The Lawyer's "Conscience" and the Limits of Persuasion, 36 Hofstra L. Rev. 479-496 (2007). [HEIN] [L] [W]
- Abbe Smith, Defending and Despairing: The Agony of Juvenile Defense, 6 Nev. L.J. 1127-1136 (2006). [HEIN] [L] [W] [Gtown Law]
- Abbe Smith, Defending the Unpopular Down-Under, 30 Melb. U. L. Rev. 495-553 (2006). [HEIN] [L] [W] [Gtown Law]
- Abbe Smith, The "Monster" in All of Us: When Victims Become Perpetrators, 38 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 367-394 (2005). [HEIN] [L] [W] [Gtown Law]
- Abbe Smith, The Dignity and Humanity of Bruce Springsteen's Criminals, 14 Widener L.J. 787-835 (2005). [HEIN] [L] [W] [Gtown Law]
- Abbe Smith, Telling Stories and Keeping Secrets, 8 UDC/DCSL L. Rev. 255-268 (2005). [HEIN] [L] [W]
- Abbe Smith, The Burdens of Representing the Accused in an Age of Harsh Punishment, 18 Notre Dame J.L. Ethics & Pol'y 451-463 (2004). [HEIN] [L] [W]
- Abbe Smith, Defense-Oriented Judges, 32 Hofstra L. Rev. 1483-1505 (2004). [HEIN] [L] [W] [Gtown Law]
- Abbe Smith, Too Much Heart and Not Enough Heat: The Short Life and Fractured Ego of the Empathic, Heroic Public Defender, 37 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1203-1265 (2004). [HEIN] [L] [W] [Gtown Law]
- Abbe Smith, The Bounds of Zeal in Criminal Defense: Some Thoughts on Lynne Stewart, 44 S. Tex. L. Rev. 31-52 (2002). [HEIN] [L] [W]
- Abbe Smith, The Difference in Criminal Defense and the Difference It Makes, 11 Wash. U. J.L. & Pol'y 83-140 (2003). [HEIN] [L] [W] [Gtown Law]
- Abbe Smith, The Complex Uses of Sexual Orientation in Criminal Court, 11 Am. U.J. Gender Soc. Pol'y & L. 101-115 (2002). [HEIN] [L] [W]
- Abbe Smith, Can You Be a Good Person and a Good Prosecutor?, 14 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 355-400 (2001). [HEIN] [L] [W]
- Abbe Smith & Ilene Seidman, Lawyers for the Abused and Lawyers for the Accused: An Interfaith Marriage, 47 Loy. L. Rev. 415-455 (2001). [HEIN] [L]
- Abbe Smith, Defending Defending: The Case for Unmitigated Zeal on Behalf of People Who Do Terrible Things, 28 Hofstra L. Rev. 925-961 (2000). [HEIN] [L] [W] [Gtown Law]
- Abbe Smith, Defending the Innocent, 32 Conn. L. Rev. 485-522 (2000). [HEIN] [L] [W] [Gtown Law]
Book Chapters and Collected Works
- Abbe Smith, Strickland v. Washington: Gutting Gideon and Providing Cover for Incompetent Counsel, in We Dissent: Talking Back to the Rehnquist Court: Eight Cases that Subverted Civil Liberties and Civil Rights 188-226 (Michael Avery ed., New York: New York University Press 2009). [BOOK]
- Abbe Smith & Monroe H. Freedman, Understanding Lawyer's Ethics, in Understanding Law School: An Introduction to the LexisNexis Understanding Series and Tips on How to Succeed in Law School (Newark, N.J.: LexisNexis 2004).
Selected Contributions to Other Publications
- Abbe Smith, A Hip-Hop Prosecutor Sings the Blues, 14 Legal Ethics 261-274 (2011) (reviewing Paul Butler, Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Criminal Justice (2009)).
- Abbe Smith, Defending Atticus Finch, 14 Legal Ethics 143-167 (2011) (reviewing Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)).
- Abbe Smith, The Innocent and Not So Innocent Alike: Untold Casualties in the War on Crime, Hum. Rts., Spring 2002, at 14-17. [HEIN] [L] [W]
View all scholarship
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Email:
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Address:
600 New Jersey Avenue N.W.
Washington, DC 20001 -
Office Location:
McDonough 130
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Assistant:
Teruko Richardson
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Phone:
202-662-9579
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