During the ABA’s midyear meeting, Mary L. Smith was elected by the Nominating Committee to ABA President. Barring a petition from another candidate, the House of Delegates is expected to elect Smith as president-elect at the ABA’s annual meeting in August 2022 and she will then become ABA president during the ABA’s 2023 annual meeting. If elected, Smith will be the first woman Native American to serve as president.
Smith is a member of the Cherokee Nation. She was on the ABA Board of Governors for seven years and ABA secretary from 2017 to 2020. She served in a senior role at Tyco International, managing high-profile corporate governance matters. Smith was also chief executive of the Indian Health Service, which serves over 2.2 million individuals. Smith served as an Adviser on Restatement of the Law, The Law of American Indians, completed in 2021.
Learn more about her election here.