David Benjamin Smith

For eight years prior to entering private practice in 1986, Mr. Smith was a prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Alexandria, Virginia and a Trial Attorney in Criminal Division’s Appellate and Narcotics Sections. He was the first Deputy Chief of the Asset Forfeiture Office, where he was responsible for supervising all forfeiture litigation in the United States.

With Mr. Smith's extensive background in forfeiture law, he participates in civil and criminal forfeiture cases all over the United States and consults extensively with other lawyers in this area of law. He is a frequent lecturer on forfeiture practice. Mr. Smith's practice includes federal criminal defense and criminal appeals. He has argued numerous federal criminal appeals as both a prosecutor and defense attorney, and also has extensive experience with civil and criminal litigation in the Supreme Court of the United States.

Mr. Smith is the author of the leading two-volume treatise, Prosecution and Defense of Forfeiture Cases (2018), published by Matthew Bender, and is considered the top expert on forfeiture law in the United States. He is the co-author of another leading treatise, Civil RICO (2018), also published by Matthew Bender. The book covers criminal prosecutions as well as private, civil litigation under the RICO statute. He is regularly quoted by newspaper reporters and has appeared on many television news programs.

Mr. Smith has counseled the Senate and House Judiciary Committees on forfeiture reform legislation, and was heavily involved in drafting the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000. He has testified before congressional committees several times with respect to forfeiture, restitution and money laundering legislation. He has been retained to provide legal opinions as an expert on American forfeiture law in several foreign enforcement cases in the United Kingdom and the Channel Islands.