Beverly McQueary Smith - Professor Emeritus of Advocacy

Professor Beverly McQueary Smith hails from Touro College: Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center in Huntington, NY. Professor McQueary Smith teaches contracts, torts, environmental law, consumer law, race and American law, land use planning and zoning, appellate advocacy, professional responsibility and legislation. She serves or has served on several boards: the Jersey City Medical Center, the Minority Environmental Lawyers Association, Southern Africa Environment Project, Consumers Union--the publishers of Consumers Reports, and from 1988-2005, she was a member of the Board of Governors of the National Bar Association (NBA). She chaired the Southern Africa Environmental Project and the National Campaign on Black Health. She also served as a board member of the New York County Lawyers Association and the Council on Legal Education Opportunity (CLEO). In August 2000, she was elected to the Executive Council of the National Conference of Bar Presidents. In 2000, she became the Secretary-Treasurer of CLEO. She also served on the Advisory Group of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for Environmental Justice, and the Enforcement Committee of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Group of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (NEJAC). In 2003, she became a member of the New York State Bar Association’s House of Delegates. In January 2006, she became Secretary to the Women in Legal Education Section of the Association of American Law Schools. From January 2008 to January 2009, Professor McQueary Smith chaired the Section. In April 2006, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Touro Law School Chapter of the National Black Law Students’ Association. In September 2007, she earned a Trailblazer Award from the Northeast People of Color Legal Scholars Conference. In spring 2010, she became President of the North Jersey Chapter of the Links, Inc., and in July 2010, the International President of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., appointed her to the Internal Leadership Training for External Service Committee.

In 1988, she became co-chair of the Law Professors Division of the NBA. After serving a three -year term as co-chair, she then became director of Region II of the NBA. After a three year stint as Board Member-at-Large; she became a vice president in 1995 and gained the President-elect post of the NBA in 1997. She was installed as President of the National Bar Association on July 31, 1998 in Memphis, TN. As President of the NBA, she represented some 18,000 Black lawyers, judges, legal scholars and law students throughout the United States of America, and increasingly the world. In recent years the NBA has formed international affiliate chapters in Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, South Africa, England, Canada and Ghana.

A member of The Links, Inc., and the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Professor McQueary Smith is also a member of the American Law Institute, and from November 1997 until 2002 served as a Commissioner of the New York State Ethics Commission for the Unified Courts System.

She authored a host of articles on a wide variety of topics and delivered papers at professional and continuing legal education programs in the United States and abroad. She also served as an official election observer during the 1994 South African Elections.

She has a Bachelor of Arts from Jersey City State College, a Master of Arts from Rutgers--The State University of New Jersey, a Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law and a Master of Laws degree from Harvard Law School.

Professor McQueary Smith is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia, and the States of West Virginia, Texas and New Jersey. After graduating from NYU Law School, she embarked on a seven year career with the federal government. During that time she worked for U.S. Senator Jacob K. Javits (R-NY); clerked for a federal district court judge; served as the Program Advisor for Mail Order Rule Enforcement at the Federal Trade Commission and as an Attorney-Advisor in the Office of the Solicitor of the United States Department of the Interior where she drafted a federal regulation dealing with surface coal mining on Indian lands.

Professor Beverly McQueary Smith was known professionally for many years as Beverly M.M. Charles, she now prefers to be identified as Beverly McQueary Smith.