Elizabeth Smith

Elizabeth Smith is a Partner and Practice Lead for the Interim Legal Talent practice group. Based in the Boston office, she leads business development efforts and specializes in the recruitment and placement of experienced attorneys, paralegals, contracts managers, legal operations professionals and compliance professionals for substantive assignments in both law firms and in-house legal departments. Elizabeth takes a consultative approach to identifying talent for her clients, pushing them to think creatively in terms of strategy, efficiency and candidate selection. She is a firm believer that a successful placement involves a balance of both substantive experience and emotional intelligence and works with her clients to place candidates accordingly. For her candidates, Elizabeth takes pride in exposing them to new possibilities, opportunities and challenges that expand their career potential and put them on a path of doing something they love. As Practice Lead, she serves as a coach, mentor and leader to other consultants throughout Northeast Corridor (Boston to Philadelphia). She oversees their training, development and ensures that the consultants are consistently growing in their roles and supporting their clients as business partners and thought leaders.

A frequent contributor and panelist for the Massachusetts Bar Association, the Boston Bar Association, Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers and various law schools, Elizabeth is a recognized networking and job searching expert. She is also active in various children's charities, including the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and City Year.

Elizabeth lives in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with her husband Kevin and daughter Whitney. She enjoys politics, cycling, yoga, cooking and reading a book a week. She led Cycle for Survival Teams in 2017, 2018 2019, and 2021 and has served as a “Survivor Rider” riding at least four hours straight to honor her father, who lost his battle to a rare gastric cancer.

Prior to joining Major, Lindsey & Africa, Elizabeth served as the director of candidate recruitment and development in Counsel On Call's Boston office. There she provided seasoned contract attorneys and paralegals on an as-needed basis to law firms and legal departments throughout the country. Notably, she assisted a Fortune 500 legal department with the revamping of its legal hiring practices and created a rotational paralegal program, saving the department more than $1,000,000 per year.

Previously, Elizabeth worked as a commercial litigation associate in the Hartford offices of LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae (which became known as Dewey & LeBoeuf) and Halloran & Sage. At LeBoeuf, she assisted a Fortune 500 manufacturing client with post-closing environmental remediation issues and served as one of the firm's electronic discovery and strategy experts. While at Halloran, she represented companies ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 insurance companies on issues ranging from contractual breach to ITAR.

While in law school, Elizabeth received the First Lap Award for dedication to the law school community. She also served as a summer associate in Collier Shannon Scott's District of Columbia Office (now known as Kelly Drye). In addition, she served as an intern in international litigation and military procedure with the United States Department of Defense, Army Judge Advocate General Corps at the Pentagon, where she researched legal issues surrounding the prosecution of the Guantanamo Bay detainees following 9/11.