Judith Anne Smith


Judith Anne Smith is a former Magistrate Judge and current Associate Judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

Education and career

Smith earned her Bachelor of Arts from The Pennsylvania State University in 1985, and her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1992. While attending law school, she interned at the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, National Criminal Justice Association and at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia.
After graduating, she clerked for D.C. Superior Court judge A. Franklin Burgess. In 1993, Smith opened a law practice. From 1994 to 2001 she returned to the Public Defender Service as a staff attorney and later as a special education attorney. In 2001, she went to work in the Office of Special Education of the District of Columbia Public Schools as an executive director.

D.C. Superior Court

On September 15, 2008, Superior Court of the District of Columbia chief judge Rufus G. King III appointed Smith as a magistrate judge on the court.
President Barack Obama nominated Smith on March 25, 2010, to a 15-year term as an associate judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia to the seat vacated by Geoffrey M. Alprin. On April 20, 2010, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held a hearing on her nomination. On April 28, 2010, the Committee reported her nomination favorably to the senate floor. On June 22, 2010, the full Senate confirmed her nomination by voice vote.