Leo Smith ('82) receives Gideon Award for Deputy Chief Public Defender work

Leo G. Smith, the Deputy Chief Public Defender with the Louisville Metro Public Defender Office, recently received the 2015 Gideon Award for his committed service of ensuring the right to counsel for clients in Jefferson County. Smith is a 1982 graduate of the Brandeis School of Law, where he served as Executive Editor of the Law Review.

Smith began working in the Louisville Metro Public Defender's office in 1981 as a law clerk. After graduating from law school, he was hired as a staff trial attorney and promptly won 20 Walker Awards (complete acquittals in jury trials).

Smith was also selected as the very first recipient of the Kentucky Bar Association's Professionalism & Excellence Award in 1999.

According to Public Advocate, Ed Monahan,Smith "has done it all in terms of public defender work: trials, appeals, post-conviction (including capital cases at all three stages), teaching, training and mentoring, as well as supervision, administration and management."

The Gideon Award is named after the 1963 landmark Supreme Court Gideon case, which stated: "The right of one charged with crime to counsel may not be deemed fundamental and essential to fair trials in some countries, but it is in ours. From the very beginning, our state and national constitutions and laws have laid great emphasis on procedural and substantive safeguards designed to assure fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law. This noble ideal cannot be realized if the poor man charged with crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him.”