The American Bar Association (ABA) made history in 2023 when it installed Mary L. Smith as its first ever female Native American president. Prior to Smith's election to the ABA-which is the world's largest voluntary association of lawyers, judges, and legal professionals-Smith had already served on its board of governors and was its secretary from 2017 to 2020.

Born to Cherokee parents, Smith is a member of the Cherokee Nation. She is also former CEO of Indian Health Services (IHS). The six billion dollar agency is responsible for providing federal health services to over two million American Indians and Alaska Natives across the USA.

Smith has also served as general counsel at the Illinois Department of Insurance. She was counselor in the Civil Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, was associate White House counsel to the president of the United States, and was once the associate director of White House Policy Planning.

Her impressive resume reveals that Smith also played a senior role at Tyco International. Incorporated in the Republic of Ireland, the $40 billion public company also held a USA operational headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey. While in Princeton, she managed the security systems' 60 million dollar budget.

The newly installed ABA President is also founder of the Caroline and Ora Smith Foundation, named for her mother and grandmother respectively. The organization's goals are to train Native American girls and women around the country in the STEM areas: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Mary's forebears could not even dream of such study areas for females in their day.

Based in Chicago, the 501©(3) organization, of which Smith is also president and chairperson, is in direct contrast to the days when formal education for Indigenous American girls was considered unnecessary. Even so, Mary L. Smith's mother defied the odds by graduating from high school at 16 years of age; but because she grew up in a culture where only boys went to college, Caroline was denied the opportunity her three brothers received.

Mary L. Smith's grandmother, Ora Mae Smith (born Pallone in 1905), was even more challenged: She was born into a family of sixteen children, with ten surviving past the age of three, Ora was allowed to attend school only through eighth grade.

Mary, however, not only graduated from high school, but she also graduated magna cum laude with a B.S. degree in mathematics and computer science from Loyola University in Chicago. She is also a cum laude graduate from the University of Chicago School of Law. Smith further served on the Law Review and clerked for the Hon. R. Lanier Anderson III in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Among her awards and recognitions, Smith was selected as Chicago United's Business Leader of Color; a Nelson award, recognizing exceptional service by a public sector lawyer; a 2023 Director to Watch award by Directors & Board magazine, and a White House U.S. Office of Personnel Management Director's Citation for Exemplary Public Service.

Smith's contributions to society and her untiring efforts to provide opportunities for Indigenous heritage girls and women to succeed will be long remembered.

Sources:

KB Schaller

ABA webpage

http://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/ali.org

http://www.americanbar.org/groups/leadership/aba_officers/

Caroline and Ora Smith Foundation

Wikipedia

KB Schaller is the Award-winning author of 100+ Native American Women Who Changed the World, Women's Issues Category. Other KB Schaller books are available through amazon.com and other booksellers.