George P. Smith, II Distinguished Professor
Professor George P. Smith, II, a native of Wabash, Indiana, earned a bachelor’s degree in business, economics, and public policy from Indiana University in 1961 and a JD from Indiana Law in 1964. In 1975, Professor Smith earned an LLM from Columbia University. From 1976 to 1977, he was a commonwealth fellow at Yale Law School’s Program in Law and Medicine. Since 1977, he has been a professor of law at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
Professor Smith was awarded an Australian-American Fulbright Foundation Award in 1984 and was appointed Fulbright Visiting Professor of Law and Medical Jurisprudence at the University of New South Wales. In 1985, he received the IU Distinguished Alumni Award and a citation of honor from the Indiana University Institute for Advanced Study (where he was a member) for “his path-breaking interdisciplinary research and writing on medical and biological issues as they relate to law and ethics.” Professor Smith received an LLD from IU in 1998, and received the Law School’s highest honor, induction into the Academy of Law Alumni Fellows, in spring 2007.
He is currently a member of the Law School’s Board of Visitors.
A prolific author and leader in law reform, Smith’s bibliography includes 13 books and more than 157 law review articles, monographs, book chapters, and essays.
He has held 70 academic fellowships at a variety of colleges, universities, institutes, and centers, including Cambridge University; Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons; Dartmouth College; Duke University Medical Center; Georgetown University’s Institute for Bioethics; the Hoover Institution at Stanford University; the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg, Germany; Princeton Theological Seminary; the Rockefeller Foundation; Trinity College in Dublin; Vanderbilt Divinity School; University of Virginia Medical School; and the Yale Divinity School.
A lifetime member of the American Law Institute, Professor Smith has been a consultant to UNESCO’s International Bioethics Committee, the U.S. Congressional Committee on Science and Technology, and the New South Wales Law Reform Commission in Australia.
Robert Fischman, George P. Smith, II Distinguished Professor; Adjunct Professor of Public and Environmental Affairs