Deirdre

M.

Smith

Deirdre M. Smith is the Director of Litigation at Pine Tree Legal Assistance, Maine's largest and oldest statewide legal aid organization. She is also Professor of Law, Emerita, at the University of Maine School of Law, where she directed the law school's clinical program and taught Evidence, Remedies, Professional Responsibility, and Lawyering Skills for Clinical Practice, among other courses.

Deirdre’s research has focused on judicial ethics and court systems for protective proceedings and families and the law, including minor & adult guardianship, child protection, kinship care, and adoption. She was a consultant to the Maine Family Law Advisory Commission and the Pew Charitable Trusts Civil Legal System Modernization Project. She formerly served as an Observer on the Drafting Committee for the Uniform Law Commission's newly enacted Uniform Guardianship Conservatorship and Other Protective Arrangements Act. She has been involved with several law reform initiatives in the Maine Legislature addressing families, children, and courts in both public and private family law matters. She is former Chair of the Professional Ethics Commission of the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar and of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s Advisory Committee on the Rules of Evidence.