The Hon. Judith A. Smith (Ret.) is a senior judge for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. She was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama in March 2015. Smith was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 22, 2010. She retired at the end of her term in 2022, assuming senior status.
She began her judicial career as a magistrate judge for the Superior Court in 2008.
Before joining the bench, Smith briefly served as general counsel for the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, having joined the office in 2008. Before that, she held various positions with the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. Smith joined the office in 1994 as a staff attorney in the Juvenile Services Program and later became the first Special Education Attorney with the office.
In 2001, she left the Public Defender’s Office to serve as Executive Director in the Office of Special Education of the District of Columbia Public Schools, before returning in 2007 as coordinator of the Juvenile Services Program. Smith remained in that capacity until 2008.
She received a B.S. in accounting from Pennsylvania State University in 1985. Smith went on to work for Price Waterhouse in Boston, Massachusetts, and Columbus, Ohio, obtaining her Certified Public Accountant license in Ohio in 1988. She then joined Clarke & Company as comptroller before relocating to Washington, D.C., where she obtained a J.D. at Georgetown University Law Center in 1992.
After graduating from law school, Smith began her legal career as a clerk for the Hon. A. Franklin Burgess, Jr. with the Superior Court of the District of Columbia (1992 to 1993). Following her clerkship, she opened her own private practice, where she handled juvenile delinquency and criminal matters. In addition to her practice, Smith taught as an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School and provided pro bono services for the Washington Legal Clinic.
She has been involved with Big Brothers/Big Sisters for over twenty years.
Smith was born in Columbus, Ohio, and raised in Grove City, Ohio.