Richard W. Smith

RICHARD SMITH is a distinguished commercial litigator and first-chair trial lawyer who, in his 28 years of practice, has represented some of the most recognizable companies and individuals in the world in high-stakes, and often high-profile litigations, spanning a broad range of industries and substantive legal areas. As a former award-winning journalist and public relations professional, Richard is valued for his ability to manage multidimensional crises, master complex factual scenarios, and focus on core business needs, while navigating legal challenges to successful outcomes. His complex litigation practice spans high-value environmental, antitrust, state attorneys general, sports, political, healthcare, intellectual property, product liability, First Amendment, and business tort claims.

Among other high-profile litigation matters, Richard defended a secondary lead smelter in mass tort litigation that followed publication of a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative series, a pharmaceutical company against multibillion-dollar antitrust bundling claims, and a Fortune Global 50 company in one of the largest criminal price-fixing cases in history. He participated in the Florida recount litigation in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election, the constitutional challenge to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, and the successful defense of a Florida man accused of committing first-degree felony murder.

A multiyear “Litigation Star” by Benchmark Litigation (2023–2026) and a “BTI Client Service All-Star” (2014), Richard has represented a domestic contractor in a series of oil pipeline construction disputes over multiple sites; an international contractor in a multi-jurisdictional construction dispute arising out of a government contract; a New York entertainment property in an engineering and design defect suit; a Fortune 10 retailer in connection with a wide range of litigation and regulatory issues; all of the national Republican political party committees in defamation or First Amendment litigation; a professional sports league in intellectual property and personal injury litigation; a number of major pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporations in products liability litigation; and various clients in antitrust litigation.

Representative State Matters

• Lead counsel for multiple separate plastics manufacturers targeted by the California Attorney General in a multi-year greenwashing investigation. Settled claims on behalf of three for a small fraction of initial demand while avoiding follow-on private litigation and avoided litigation entirely for others.
• Secured a preliminary injunction on behalf of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors against Oregon’s first-of-its-kind plastic packaging extended producer responsibility law, blocking enforcement pending trial on constitutional Due Process and Dormant Commerce Clause claims.
• In coordination with 17 state attorneys general, representing the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors in litigation seeking to enjoin enforcement of California’s Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act, which seeks to require revolutionary changes to the way manufacturers, distributors, and companies design and package their products, as well as how plastic or plastic-containing packaging waste is disposed.

Representative Environmental Matters

• Lead counsel for an onshore wind farm project seeking a preliminary injunction against the United States to force Department of Defense Siting Clearinghouse to act on pending applications for mitigation agreements despite Trump Administration policies suspending such review.
• Lead counsel and public spokesperson for Vineyard Wind I, LLC, following the collapse of a turbine blade into the Atlantic Ocean during commissioning. Successfully guided the company’s legal and press response teams, including through actual and threatened litigation on multiple fronts.
• Secured a major victory for Equinor, a leading international energy company headquartered in Norway, when the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) agreed to lift a month-long stop-work order that threatened timely completion of Equinor’s $5 billion Empire 1 offshore wind project.
• Advised multiple developing wind farm projects through successful litigation with the Trump Administration, resulting in multiple preliminary injunctions setting aside stop-work orders that would have prevented the several multi-billion projects from progressing to completion.
• Trial counsel for privately held investment company and its chairman as an individual defendant in Federal Court in St. Louis in a trial concerning negligence and veil-piercing allegations as a result of alleged actions of a subsidiary of a subsidiary of the investment company. Settled the day before jury selection began.
• Lead counsel for Gopher Resource, a domestic secondary lead smelter, in mass tort litigation involving thousands of actual and potential claimants alleging exposure to lead, cadmium, arsenic, and other hazardous substances.
• Lead counsel for East Penn Manufacturing, achieving successful dismissal of multiple separate claims alleging exposure to lead and other hazardous substances, including dismissal on worker’s compensation grounds of an infant’s claim where the alleged exposure pathway was in utero during the mother’s employment.
• Advisory counsel to an international ammunition manufacturer alleged to have exposed workers and the surrounding community to elevated levels of lead, cadmium, and arsenic during the manufacturing process.
• Led internal investigation and advised a leading cosmetics supplier and manufacturer on good manufacturing practices and supplier management following the discovery of suspected irregularities and in anticipation of the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act.

Some of the above matters were handled prior to joining Sidley.

• President of the National Capital Soccer League, one of the largest youth soccer leagues in the United States, 2012–present
• Board Member, Virginia Youth Soccer Association, 2012–present
• Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, Executive Leadership Program Certification, 2025