Robert Smith has served as the Managing Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies since 2006. In this role he oversees the activities of the Center, including supervising the Annual International Law and Religion Symposium and numerous international conferences each year, in addition to overseeing academic publications and participating in law-reform consultations. He serves as the Center’s Regional Advisor for the United States. Professor Smith is a co-author, along with W. Cole Durham, Jr. and William Bassett, of the treatise Religious Organizations and the Law, published by Thomson West. This four-volume, four-thousand-page work for lawyers representing religious organizations in the United States is updated annually. Professor Smith has also co-authored numerous articles on religious freedom and other legal topics, and he is a speaker at international conferences on religious topics.

Before joining the law school, Professor Smith served as Executive Vice-President and General Counsel to CaseData Corporation. Previously, he was a shareholder and chairman of the Corporate and Tax department at the law firm of Kirton & McConkie in Salt Lake City. He also practiced with large law firms in Washington, D.C. and Chicago, Illinois. He spent his early career working as a CPA for Deloitte & Touche in California and Washington, D.C.

Professor Smith received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from BYU and is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Notre Dame, where he earned a Masters of Business Administration. He is also a magna cum laude graduate of the J. Reuben Clark Law School, where he was named to the Order of the Coif and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Brigham Young University Law Review.