Johnathan Smith joined LDF’s staff as Assistant Counsel in the Economic Justice Group in October 2010. Prior to joining LDF, Mr. Smith spent two years as a litigation associate with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP where he was the NAACP LDF fellow. At Fried Frank, Mr. Smith represented clients in a variety of complex commercial and civil rights matters before federal courts. Mr. Smith also previously served as a law clerk to the Honorable Carl E. Stewart on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He received his J.D. from NYU School of Law, where he was a Root-Tilden-Kern public interest scholar and an editor of the Review of Law and Social Change. Mr. Smith graduated cum laude from Harvard College with a degree in Sociology and African-American Studies and also holds an M.Ed in education policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.