S. Christie Smith IV is the senior partner of SmithBush, LLP, a regional Louisiana law firm originally established in 1911 to represent laborers–and too often their widows and children–who were harmed by the burgeoning and unregulated timber industry in the rural South. Mr. Smith’s work today is the modern extension of that century-old practice, in a broader, litigation-based platform. As a consumer advocate and lawyer-in-the-trenches, he has spent his career representing regular people in the fight for safer working conditions, reliable products, civil rights, and fair access to the courts. His practice focuses on litigating wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases resulting from defective products and drugs, automobile collisions, motorcycle accidents, industrial incidents, medical errors, and Federal Tort Claims liability. On occasion, he defends individuals in the most serious types of criminal charges or in cases where their Constitutional rights have been intentionally or systemically abridged. He has tried cases across the Gulf South, from personal injury and damage claims to first degree murder and narcotics traficking. He is one of the few lawyers dually board-certified in both civil and criminal trial advocacy by the National Board of Legal Specialty Certification, has been recognized in the “Top 50 Louisiana SuperLawyers” List, holds an “AV–Preeminent” rating, the highest rating available from the Martindale-Hubbell Directory of Attorneys, and is listed in Best Lawyers in America. He is widely-published and frequently lectures on emerging issues in trial and Constitutional law.