Peter spent his 50-year career delivering legal services to those who traditionally have been denied access – African Americans and other people of colour, the poor, juveniles and those with disabilities. As a member of the Appeals and Research Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, he helped to write and argue appeals in some of the most significant cases in the struggles of the 1960s.
In 1966, he joined the Neighbourhood Legal Services Programme of Washington, DC – the Nation's first civil appellate legal services programme. He argued before the Supreme Court of the United States the landmark case Shapiro v Thompson that brought an end to welfare residency requirements. The work he did in public housing and welfare reform continues to this day to affect the quality of lives of those people who are dependent upon government policy for their very survival.
Having concluded that lack of access to effective legal representation required the participation of the private sector, Peter established a branch office of the Baltimore law firm of Piper and Marbury in Baltimore's inner-city dedicated exclusively to representing poor individuals – the first programme of its kind in the United States.
In 1972 he joined the faculty at the University of Maryland Law School and created one of the first clinical legal education programmes in the nation in which students practised law full-time with their professor. Clinic students litigated a case in the United States Supreme Court, involving the rights of juveniles not to be tried more than once for the same offence. It was the first appearance before the Court by a law school clinical programme.
The last 20 years of his legal career focused on representing children with disabilities in their effort to obtain appropriate special education services.
Baltimore Judge Robert Hammerman once wrote in a Court Opinion:
Recognition is the last thing which Mr Smith would seek, and this is even more reason why it is due him. Mr Smith is an excellent lawyer, a vigorous and able advocate, but above all one who has a keen social conscience and who has dedicated his considerable talents and abilities to fulfilling the calls and demands of that conscience. This court and our entire community is in his debt and we are fortunate to have him in our midst.
A personal addition from Avrom Sherr, Editor, IJLP
Peter Smith, like a lion (or possibly a big growling bear), fought injustice always for everybody else.
He was a great teacher and a great lawyer, without any fear for himself or his position. Once in Baltimore, as a young man of colour was being roughed up by two policemen ready for a fight with anyone, Peter walked over right into the middle of this fracas to check whether the young man needed the assistance of a lawyer. Peter was fortunate that he was not arrested or even shot in these circumstances. But his steadfastness caused the police to think twice before continuing to beat up the young man. I stood by in amazement and fear.
Totally down-to-earth as a teacher of lawyers, he faced my class at Warwick University for the first time in the early 1980s. Introduced as the fabled defender of the poor, Peter stood up and said the immortal words, which ring in my ears every time I teach, every time I practice, every time I organise anything. They were not relatively meaningless, aspirational ideas such as ‘Justice for all', ‘the quality of mercy', or even ‘we shall overcome'. Professor Smith said simply, “Lawyers make lists”. That's all, “Lawyers make lists”! It was another week before he actually sat down with the class and started to explain the approach, the necessity, the doing of the job and not the talking about it. And, being Peter, he made a meal of the idea, so that none of us there – teachers and students alike – would ever forget.
They don't really make them like Peter any more. Craggy, sometimes annoyingly slow in developing his argument, never giving up until he understood your position, then setting about breaking it down. A personality that you could feel and admire from the other side of the Atlantic, but one that would sit down with a person in need and carefully listen and craft a case to win.
Every one of his students, every one of his clients, every one of his family and friends will know what it meant to be a great legal educator and lawyer. This Special Issue is dedicated to his memory.