Raymond J. Smith

Raymond J. Smith is an attorney with fifty years of experience in criminal and civil litigation. He is of counsel to SJ&A, where he regularly participates in case development and strategy, as well as litigation of select cases.

Mr. Smith was a First Lieutenant in the Army Judge Advocate General's Corps, prosecuting and defending many major felony cases in Germany. He then became an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois, where he obtained convictions against nationally significant defendants that included high-ranking Teamster officials. Mr. Smith was also the ex-officio federal defender representing hundreds of indigent defendants pro bono.

Mr. Smith argued and won a case before the United States Supreme Court, as well as several appeals in various federal courts.

Mr. Smith has tried over 150 federal and state criminal cases throughout the country on charges ranging from murder to income-tax fraud. As pro bono counsel, he obtained the dismissal of the indictment against Steve Manning, the thirteenth death row inmate exonerated in Illinois, which in part led to the moratorium imposed by Governor Ryan a few days later. Mr. Smith represented the State of Illinois in Schacht v. Brown, obtaining a $30 million fraud judgment against three major accounting firms, a French reinsurer, and the officers and directors of a defunct Illinois insurance company. In Schacht, he was the first attorney nationally to use a federal civil RICO theory. He also represented the State of Illinois in an antitrust case against a major pipeline company. Mr. Smith argued and won a case before the United States Supreme Court, as well as several appeals in various federal circuits. He is currently trying civil rights cases and defending blue- and white-collar criminal cases, and is an adjunct professor of trial advocacy at the Northwestern University School of Law.