On Thursday, October 24, senior counsel at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer and national security expert Jeffrey H. Smith ’66 received the National Law Journal’s 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award.
Smith, a former general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency who has practiced law with a national security focus for more than 50 years, helped develop a crucial information-sharing relationship with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the 1990s.
Smith crafted the legal doctrine establishing the nation’s first posthumous presidential pardon, defending former President Bill Clinton’s authority to pardon 2LT Henry Flipper, the first black graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, who was court-martialed for embezzlement in 1881.
When asked about what being honored for his lifetime achievement as a national security attorney meant to him, Smith said, “I hope honoring me with this award will inspire others to devote themselves to national security law, because it’s so important.”
(Photo credit: law.com)
