Mr. Smith is an attorney with 15 years of business law and advocacy experience in both the private and public sectors. He currently practices health care and business law and also owns a healthcare consulting company specializing in policy development, advocacy, business, and legal consulting.

     His training as an attorney has focused on transactional law and commercial litigation. Previously, he served as Legislative Counsel to the former Mayor of Philadelphia where he was responsible for municipal economic development initiatives and for implementing federal lobbying initiatives consistent with the City’s federal budgetary, legislative, and regulatory agenda.

     Mr. Smith was appointed by the federal judiciary as Deputy Special Master over a class action matter before the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Harris v. City of Philadelphia involving the implementation of policies to address prison overcrowding and was also appointed by the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania federal Court as Arbitration Master over a tenant-landlord class action law suit involving a public housing authority landlord, Velez v. The City of Chester Public Housing Authority.

     More recently, Mr. Smith served as the General Counsel and Senior Policy Associate at The Coalition of Voluntary Mental Health Agencies, Inc. While at the Coalition, Mr. Smith’s duties included managing, advising, and advocating on legal and policy issues related to the organizational, fiscal, policy, and intergovernmental concerns of non-profit community-based mental health entities.

     He prepared policy papers and memoranda; researched and advised on the efficacy of class action law suits; lobbied State and municipal governments; advised and rendered opinions on amicus briefs in various class action law suits involving mental health issues; and collaborated on legal and mental health policy issues with affiliated advocates. His portfolio of areas of expertise include: regulatory mandates, analysis of fiscal requirements and impacts, managed care, Medicaid, elder care, children’s mental health, foster care, forensics, best practices, and cultural competency.

     Mr. Smith is a graduate of Dickinson College and Villanova University Law School. He is a member of the American Bar Association, Pennsylvania Bar Association and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York where he serves on the Mental Health Law Committee.

     He currently resides in New York City.