Biography

Senior Counsel Hannah Smith joined The Becket Fund in 2007 following two clerkships at the U.S. Supreme Court for Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito, Jr. In her advocacy of religious liberty cases at the trial, appellate, and U.S. Supreme Court levels, Hannah has been featured on Fox News, "The O'Reilly Factor," "The Sean Hannity Show," C-Span, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, U.S. News and World Report, the Associated Press, National Review Online, the Laura Ingraham Show, the Rush Limbaugh Show, National Public Radio, and many other publications and radio shows.

Hannah received her B.A. from Princeton University, concentrating in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. She graduated from Brigham Young University Law School with honors and served as Executive Editor of the BYU Law Review. During law school, she also served as a research assistant for the BYU International Center for Law and Religion Studies and as president of the BYU Federalist Society. Following law school and in between clerkships, she was an associate in private practice at national law firms in Washington D.C., representing clients before state and federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court in civil, criminal, and constitutional cases.

Hannah served as a full-time volunteer missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in France and Switzerland. She currently serves as a member of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society International Board and as a member of the Deseret News Editorial Advisory Board in Salt Lake City, Utah. She writes a regular column on religious liberty issues in the Deseret News.

Foreign Language: French.

Bar Memberships: District of Columbia, U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Third and Fifth Circuits, U.S. District Courts for the District of Columbia and New Jersey.