Brian R. Smith
Mr. Smith’s practice focuses on appeals, professional liability matters, ethics consultations, and Bar complaint defense. He is currently the youngest diplomate nationwide who is board certified in the area of legal malpractice law with the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys (ABPLA). He was recently selected as a Georgia Super Lawyers “Rising Star” for 2016. In his more than ten years of experience in civil practice, Mr. Smith has handled a variety of different legal matters to successful conclusions on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants, as well as appellants, appellees, and lawyers facing disciplinary matters before the State Bar of Georgia and the Georgia Supreme Court. Mr. Smith’s practice also includes business disputes and catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death matters.
Mr. Smith is a “lawyer’s lawyer.” He has helped many of his fellow attorneys who have been faced with Bar complaints. In most cases, he has helped his professional discipline clients secure either a dismissal of the Bar complaint against them or minor confidential discipline from the State Bar. Much of his best work in this area is confidential and cannot be discussed publicly.
Mr. Smith attended Washington & Lee University where he earned his Bachelor’s degree in 2001 with a double major in Politics and European History. In 2004 he received his law degree from the University of Georgia Law School, graduating cum laude. While in law school, he served as a summer clerk for Judge Richard W. Story of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. He also gained considerable trial experience while working for the law school’s Legal Aid and Public Defender Clinic.
Following graduation, Mr. Smith became a member of the State Bar of Georgia in 2004. He began practice as a trial lawyer with Strawinski & Goldberg, LLP where he represented both plaintiffs and defendants. Just three months after being sworn in with the Georgia Bar, Mr. Smith tried his first civil jury trial as part of a two-man trial team with Michael L. Goldberg, and the two of them succeeded in obtaining a favorable plaintiff’s verdict in a difficult medical malpractice trial. In 2006 he co-founded the law firm of Smith & Lell, LLC., where he acted as lead counsel in a wide variety of civil litigation matters.
For more than four years, he practiced with Frank Beltran at The Beltran Firm, which is a firm specializing in matters that involve lawyers and law practice as the underlying subject matter. Over the course of those years, Mr. Smith obtained favorable results in many different types of legal malpractice claims and other matters involving lawyers. In multiple legal malpractice cases, Mr. Smith briefed and argued dispositive motions brought on behalf of his plaintiff clients that resulted in judgments in favor of the plaintiff in excess of one million dollars.
Mr. Smith is admitted to practice before all the State and Superior Courts of Georgia, the Georgia Court of Appeals, the Georgia Supreme Court, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia and the 11th Circuit United States Court of Appeals. He is a member of the State Bar of Georgia (including its Appellate Practice and Professional Liability Sections), the Atlanta Bar Association, and the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association. He served as a Barrister with the Logan E. Bleckley American Inn of Court from 2009-2011
