Lamar Smith

The Hon. Lamar Smith is a senior consultant with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP and was the U.S. representative from Texas’ 21st congressional district for 16 terms. Serving in Congress from 1987 to 2019, he was the sponsor of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act (PCIP) and co-sponsored the Leahy–Smith America Invents Act.

Rep. Smith was chair of the House Judiciary Committee in the 112th Congress. He also chaired the House Science Committee in the 113th Congress and had previously chaired the House Ethics Committee in the 106th Congress. He was ranked the most effective member of the House in the 112th Congress in a study that was jointly conducted by the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University. Politico named him the 2011 Policymaker of the Year in Technology for work on patent reform legislation.

He earned his bachelor’s from Yale University and his JD from Southern Methodist University.