The global law firm Jones Day has announced that Steve Smith has joined the Firm as a partner in the San Francisco Office where he will be part of Jones Day’s Global Disputes Practice. Mr. Smith arrives from the San Francisco office of O’Melveny & Myers, where he was a partner and chair of the firm’s International Arbitration Practice.
Mr. Smith’s practice focuses on the arbitration and litigation of complex international commercial disputes in a broad range of industries. In his 29 years of private practice, he has handled matters involving sovereign entities from the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa, and has served as both counsel and arbitrator in numerous arbitrations throughout the world.
“Steve is a strong addition to our practice and his three decades of experience as an international litigator will help to pull together our worldwide capabilities representing multinational corporations in worldwide dispute jurisdictions,” said Tim Cullen, head of Jones Day’s Global Disputes Practice. “In particular, Steve is widely regarded as a thought leader in international arbitration, a growing practice area for us in which we offer clients a comprehensive global footprint with lawyers qualified before multiple jurisdictions around the world.”
Mr. Smith is a frequent author and speaker on international dispute resolution. He is the co-chair of the ABA’s International Arbitration Committee, a member of the ICC Commission on Arbitration in Paris, and chairs the ICC’s Arbitration Committee for the Northwest U.S. He is also a Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School, where he teaches the course on international commercial arbitration.
Mr. Smith earned a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania, graduate degrees in history and law from Cambridge University, and his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was founding editor-in-chief of the school’s international law journal.
With the addition of Mr. Smith, there are now 85 lawyers in the San Francisco Office, which opened in 2003.
