Elbridge W. Smith has been representing federal employees for over 46 years. He is a 1970 graduate of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, and received his law degree from the University of Hawaii, Richardson School of Law in 1977. He is admitted to practice by the Hawaii Supreme Court, the United States District Court Hawaii, Federal Circuit and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeal, and Court of International Trade (U.S. Customs). He is a member of the Hawaii and American Bar Associations, President of the Hawaii Chapter, National Employment Lawyers Association, the only professional organization of lawyers (4,000+ nationwide) who specialize in representing individual employees.
Prior to and during law school, Elbridge W. Smith was employed as an Immigration Inspector (INS, Dept of Justice) and then as a Customs Inspector (Dept of Treasury) in Honolulu, Hawaii. He became active as a steward, local director and national officer with the then Customs union NCSA and later with the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). Mr. Smith has been in private practice since 1977, with firms concentrating on civil rights and employment interests litigation. He primarily represents individual civilian Federal employees in adverse action appeals, in discrimination complaints and other employee matters before the MSPB, EEOC and in court, but has also practiced before the FLRA, NLRB, OWCP, SSA, and has represented various federal and private sector unions such as NTEU, AFGE, Metal Trades Council, Federal Firefighters, IBEW, SEIU, the Hawaii Nurses Association, Hawaii Teamsters, Hotel Workers and UPW. Our firm has also defended a number of individual employees and private firms in employment and discrimination cases. Our present practice is about 98% federal employee representation, directly or as a consultant to other attorneys.
Mr. Smith has appeared on local and national panels on federal employee practice and procedure for the National Employment Lawyers Association and the Federal Circuit Bar Association (and for two years was its MSPB section co-chair). He has presented on federal employee appeal rights at local seminars and meetings, guest lectured at KCC and University of Hawaii in legal assistants' program courses, and has been an invited guest on the "You and the Law" public-access TV series several times. Mr. Smith authored a short article on Federal Employee Termination Appeals for the 1997 Hawaii Women's Lawyers series, "Our Rights, Our Lives, A Guide To Women's Legal Rights In Hawaii" and a more substantive article on Federal employee appeal rights was published in the Hawaii Bar Journal, Vol. I, No. 13 (1998).
Mr. Smith is proud to have been responsible for several precedential cases and for expanding the definition and/or coverage of attorney fees and expenses in Federal employee cases. See, e.g., Shimotsukasa v. USPS, 78 M.S.P.R. 679 (1998); Michelson v. Cheney, Sec'y of Defense, EEOC Appeal No. 01913684 (1993); Colon v. Dept. of Navy, 58 M.S.P.R. 190 (1993); Batey v. DMA, 16 F.3d 419 (Fed Cir. 1993) (unpublished text at 1993 WL 500301)[subsequent fee petition granted]; and Russell v. Dept. of Navy, 43 M.S.P.R. 157 (1989).