Abbe Smith

Smith earned a B.A.degree from Yale College in 1978 and a J.D. degree from the New York University School of Law in 1982. During her second year of law school at NYU—while working in the Prison Law Clinic with Professor Claudia Angelos—Smith began working on Patsy Kelly Jarrett's federal habeas corpus petition. In March 1977, a jury found Jarrett guilty of two counts of murder and two counts of robbery, but Jarrett maintained her innocence. ==Legal career==

Public defender After law school, Ms. Smith began work as an assistant public defender with the Defender Association of Philadelphia. While working as a public defender in Philadelphia, Smith began working as a law professor, teaching criminal law at City University of New York Law School. The Criminal Justice Institute is the curriculum-based criminal law clinical program of Harvard Law School. Smith joined the Georgetown University Law Center faculty in 1996. From 1994 to 2005, Smith was the attorney for Patsy Kelly Jarrett. Over the years, Smith contacted journalists, public relations firms and wrote about Kelly in law journals. In 2003, Smith convinced documentarian Ofra Bikel—who was working on a film about guilty pleas for the PBS television show Frontline—to include Jarrett in the documentary. Case of a Lifetime was a finalist in the 21st Lambda Literary Awards for best lesbian memoir/biography. In 2010, she was elected to the American Board of Criminal Lawyers. She is also on the board at the Bronx defenders and the National Juvenile Defender Center. In 2012, she was the recipient of the Legal Teaching Award from New York University School of Law. In 2015, Smith eulogized her friend and colleague Monroe Freedman. ==Writings & commentary==

Professor Smith writes and comments on criminal defense, the criminal justice system, criminal prosecution, legal ethics, and juvenile justice. Her scholarship has been cited in numerous opinions. In State v. Citizen, The Supreme Court of Louisiana cited her scholarship on indigent defendants' right to appointed counsel under Gideon v. Wainwright. Criminal defense Professor Smith writes about representing unpopular clients. She wrote an opinion article in The Washington Post titled, "What motivates a lawyer to defend a Tsarnaev, a Castro or a Zimmerman?" Smith co-edited How Can You Represent Those People? with Monroe Freedman. In the book—a collection of essays—criminal defense lawyers and others share stories about how it feels to defend people accused of crimes ranging from the ordinary to the horrific. She discussed why lawyers defend monsters on MSNBC. In Too Much Heart and Not Enough Heat: The Short Life and Fractured Ego of the Empathic, Heroic Public Defender, Smith writes about how one can sustain a career in indigent criminal defense. In order to do this, Smith recommends respect for clients, passion for the professional craft of defense lawyering, and a sense of outrage about the system. Smith writes about two former Prettyman fellows who left indigent criminal defense. Smith rejects Charles Ogletree's paradigm of public defenders as empathetic heroes. In The Bounds of Zeal in Criminal Defense: Some Thoughts on Lynne Stewart, Smith discusses the conduct that led to Lynne Stewart's prosecution and her approach to lawyering generally. Smith examines whether Stewart's view of zeal and devotion is at odds with the prevailing ethics and ethos of defense lawyering. Smith finds it troubling when the government criminally prosecutes members of the defense bar, especially when it goes after lawyers who represent unpopular clients. In Can You Be a Good Person and a Good Prosecutor?, Smith examines the morality of prosecution. First, she explores the context of criminal lawyering at the millennium and what it means to prosecute under current conditions. ==Books==

• How Can You Represent Those People? (Abbe Smith & Monroe Freedman eds., New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2013). • Abbe Smith & Monroe Freedman, Understanding Lawyers' Ethics (New Providence, N.J.: LexisNexis 4th ed. 2010). • Case of a Lifetime: A Criminal Defense Lawyer's Story (New York: Palgrave MacMillan 2008). ==References==