Professional Job Opportunities

Smith & Downey was founded in 1992 by three attorneys from a large, multi-national law firm with a strong belief that the prevailing format for a "Wall Street-type" ERISA practice was not the best format.
Their vision was to create a unique environment in which outstanding, business judgment-oriented attorneys could have unlimited access to gratifying client relationships, diverse and stimulating work, and substantial income possibilities.

That vision was borne of a frustration with the ability to achieve these goals in a conventional large law firm setting. That is, you either worked in a large law firm (with all of its inherent structural strengths and limitations) or you worked elsewhere and accepted less money and less sophisticated work. Moreover, the substantial overhead requirements of maintaining a large firm practice (associated with maintaining capacity in many disciplines, client development, mass associate training, expensive facilities, etc.) require the large firm ERISA lawyer to have an hourly rate that tends to strain client relationships and inhibit the development of a diverse, loyal and well-balanced client base.

The key to Smith & Downey, and a prerequisite for all Smith & Downey professionals, is an intense value-for-fee orientation. Through aggressive overhead management, careful selection of professionals and hyper-specialization, Smith & Downey has developed a model for providing "Wall Street" expertise at "Main Street" rates. The belief, which has been borne-out by experience, was that the market would endorse the model, and that clients would be abundant. This abundance, combined with the significantly lower overhead, provide professional compensation opportunities at all levels that rival or exceed that of Smith & Downey’s competitors, while providing the professional with unlimited variety and challenge in his or her workday. And all of this opportunity is provided in very casual settings.

To date, Smith & Downey has been an unqualified success. With a market dominance in a number of key areas (such as nonqualified deferred compensation, equity compensation, governmental representation, health care employee benefits and executive compensation, church employer representation, etc.) and other well-balanced areas of penetration (such as public company work), Smith & Downey offers to the professional, both young and not-so-young, the opportunity to develop a practice in virtually any subspecialty of employee benefits law in any market sector in which that specialty can be practiced at the highest level.

Smith & Downey believes, based on recent successes, that it successfully can expand and develop a significant client base in any area of the country where the norm for employers is to utilize large firm ERISA attorneys for employee benefits and executive compensation expertise (i.e., throughout the country). Smith & Downey’s unique approach has never been more timely, as clients look to receive practical advice for fees never in excess of the value of that advice to the client. Most of Smith & Downey’s thousands of clients formerly used a large law firm or a "Big Five" accounting firm for their ERISA advice, and practically all new clients come in some way through referrals from existing clients. Because a free market will always move toward the more efficient and less costly provider of services (if one is available), it would follow that Smith & Downey’s success will only continue and expand.

To become part of the Smith & Downey team, an attorney must be a highly motivated, well-trained ERISA attorney with excellent writing, analytical, organizational and legal research skills. The attorney must be a highly efficient self-starter with superior client relations skills. Excellent academic credentials are required. Attorneys meeting these requirements at the junior associate, senior associate, of counsel and partner levels are considered. Smith & Downey now also is exploring the opening of offices in additional cities and opportunities are available for telecommuting and for professionals with unconventional scheduling desires.

Interested parties are encouraged to e-mail their resumes to hsmith@smithdowney.com.