Professor N. Gregory Smith
After 30 years at LSU Law, Professor N. Gregory Smith retired on Aug. 11. To honor Smith’s extensive contributions to LSU Law and the university at large, LSU has bestowed upon him the title of Professor Emeritus, effective on his retirement date.
Smith said he had been considering retiring for the past few years and decided the time was right after he recently reached the “shockingly old” age of 70.
“I thought that perhaps I should retire before I lost all mental capabilities,” Smith jokingly said during a recent interview.
Smith’s witty sense of humor, warm personality, and engaging teaching style have made him a favorite professor among his students and a beloved colleague among the LSU Law faculty and staff over the past three decades.
“All of us at LSU Law are tremendously grateful for all that Professor Smith has done for the Paul M. Hebert Law Center and our students,” said LSU Law Interim Dean Lee Ann Wheelis Lockridge. “It was an absolute joy to work alongside Professor Smith, and I know I’m not alone in already missing his good humor and dry wit, which he deployed not only in the classroom and in meetings, but also on the continuing legal education circuit. We all wish him the very best in his well-deserved retirement.”
During his time at LSU Law, Smith taught classes in the areas of Common Law Property, Civil Law Property, Land Use Planning, Payment Systems, and the Legal Profession.
“I’ve been fortunate to teach some terrific courses over my career at LSU Law, but my favorite course that I’ve taught is whatever course I was teaching the students in the classroom at the moment,” he said. “I already miss teaching, and I will miss it greatly.”
Along with teaching, Smith served the LSU Law administration as Vice Chancellor for Business and Financial Affairs between 2012 and 2015 and, following the realignment with the main campus, as Associate Dean for Business and Financial Affairs until 2017. He served in other leadership positions as well, chairing various faculty committees, including Admissions, Faculty Recruitment, Promotion and Tenure, and the Executive Committee. Outside of LSU Law, he has been a member of the LSU University Budget Committee since 2018, and he served as a member of the Honorary Degree Committee for the LSU System from 2005 to 2014. From 2007 through 2013 Smith was a member of the Louisiana Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee for Revision of the Code of Judicial Conduct.
“I had frequent opportunities to associate with all kinds of people that I never would have had a chance to work with very closely as a classroom teacher,” he said. “That was a real pleasure.”
Smith published a number of books, articles, and papers during his tenure at LSU Law. His most recent article, titled “Sexual Misconduct by Louisiana Lawyers,” was published in the Louisiana Law Review shortly before he retired. He also gave many speeches and presentations to lawyers across Louisiana through the law school’s Continuing Legal Education Program. But for Smith, who was drawn to teaching after starting his career in private practice, his greatest source of accomplishment always came in the classroom.
“The single, most rewarding thing about being a law professor for me was seeing students be able to understand things that were difficult, and to feel that perhaps I was helping them understand,” he said, adding that he also enjoyed working with a variety of student organizations on their projects over the years.
Before joining LSU Law in the fall of 1991, Smith was in private and in-house practice for 12 years, first as an associate and then as a partner at the firm of Streich, Lang, Weeks & Cardon in Phoenix, Arizona, followed by time as an attorney with Security Pacific Bank Arizona. After graduating from Yale in 1975, Smith earned his law degree in 1978 from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University. He also served as an articles editor for the Brigham Young University Law Review, graduated magna cum laude, and was designated as a J. Reuben Clark Scholar.
Since retiring, Smith has dedicated time to Hurricane Ida relief efforts by assisting with cleanup efforts in devastated areas through The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which he is very active member. He has also been enjoying some recreational reading (“I’m currently enjoying a biography of Alexander Hamilton”), experimenting with house plant propagation (“I’m good at snake plants”), taking on some home repair projects (“I’m becoming something of an expert with tile and soon I’ll become more of an expert with concrete”), and “doing what my wife tells me.”
“I don’t have a lot of experience with retirement. I don’t know quite what it’s going to be like,” Smith said. “Maybe I’ll do some teaching or speaking at some point, but right now I’m just enjoying my time.”
