Tobie Smith is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Legal Instruction and Director of the Criminal Defense Clinic, which provides free representation to defendants in state, municipal, and federal prosecutions and post-conviction proceedings. Before joining the faculty of the University of Alabama School of Law in 2024, he was an appellate attorney from 2016 to 2024 with the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Northern District of Alabama, where he principally represented indigent defendants on appeal. From 2002 to 2016, he was a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Birmingham, defending children in trial-court and appellate juvenile-delinquency proceedings. He has represented defendants on appeal in the Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama, the Supreme Court of Alabama, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the District of Columbia Circuit, and the Supreme Court of the United States.
Professor Smith holds a J.D. from Cumberland School of Law and a B.S. in psychology from Birmingham-Southern College. His scholarship focuses on criminal and juvenile law and procedure.
