Randall A. Smith

Randall A. Smith is the founder of Smith & Fawer, LLC and has served from the beginning as managing partner after burnishing a reputation early on as a tenacious, creative and focused trial counsel. 

His determination in life and work is a gift from his parents and extends to a myriad of civic commitments and also as a teacher, serving as a respected adjunct professor of law at Loyola University’s School of Law for more than 30 years.

His legal achievements early in his career inspired Mr. Smith to launch Smith & Fawer – teaming with renowned criminal defense attorney Mike Fawer – with the vision of providing excellent trial counsel for both plaintiffs and defendants involved in particularly complex cases.

Mr. Smith’s focus and leadership has guided the boutique firm into one with an earned local, regional and national reputation as a successful litigation firm unafraid to take cases to trial. Opponents clearly understand the preparation, experience and resoluteness in the fight ahead when facing Smith & Fawer. The firm long ago adopted the axiom, “We hold nothing back.”

Mr. Smith’s own litigation experience is extensive and broad, with special emphasis and interest in all areas of business and commercial litigation, takings/eminent domain disputes, and white-collar criminal defense.

As managing partner, Mr. Smith actively leads his likewise assertive, creative and focused team of exceptional trial attorneys in developing successful outcomes in complicated disputes covering a wide array of legal complexities.

Mr. Smith himself was born in New York and raised in Geneva, Switzerland and Washington D.C. His father, Robert S. Smith was a lifelong American diplomat who, among his history of distinguished service, served on the U.S. National Security Council and as U.S. Ambassador to The Ivory Coast. His mother, Sally L. Smith, became a self-made pioneer in the field of learning disabilities after discovering her youngest son was afflicted and then finding a clear lack of services for him and similar children. She would go on to found The Lab School in Washington D.C., a renowned facility with a unique and positive approach to helping learning disabled children prosper. She is as well the author of 10 books on child behavior and development.

Mr. Smith graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Amherst College and then Yale Law School. He moved to New Orleans to serve as a law clerk to the Honorable Charles Schwartz, Jr., United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. After his clerkship, Mr. Smith accepted a position with the Stone Pigman law firm, where he was named partner after five years before leaving the partnership five years thereafter to pursue his vision and launch Smith & Fawer.

Mr. Smith is also active in numerous bar organizations and at Loyola University each year teaches courses in the School of Law on business litigation/white-collar crime. Mr. Smith also lectures at seminars locally and nationally, particularly in the area of eminent domain. Mr. Smith was selected some 15 years ago as the sole Louisiana member of the Owners’ Counsel of America, a national association of experienced property right and eminent domain attorneys, and served recently as its Chair for two (2) years.