TALLAHASSEE — On November 20, we hosted Chief Judge D. Brooks Smith, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, as part of our Jurist in Residence Program. Judge Smith is the only judge in the history of the Third Circuit to have served as both a chief district judge and as chief of the circuit. Prior to becoming a judge, he practiced and was managing partner at Jubelirer, Carothers, Krier and Halpern, served as an assistant district attorney, served as a special prosecutor, and was the Blair County district attorney, all in Pennsylvania. Judge Smith served as a county court judge and a common pleas court judge before being appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania in 1988. He was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 2002. In addition to his federal judicial service, which includes serving on two committees of the Judicial Conference of the United States, Judge Smith teaches a seminar on class actions at Penn State Law—his alma mater.

While on campus, Judge Smith met with members of the student body to discuss the value of judicial externships and clerkships, visited and made remarks in Professor David Landau’s Civil Procedure class, had lunch with Law Review and Moot Court students, met with faculty members about clerkships, and attended a session with professors and judges of the federal bench and Florida Supreme Court.