Carla Smith began her legal career in New York City as a corporate associate for Latham & Watkins LLP, focusing on high-level mergers and acquisitions, bank financing transactions, restructurings, and public equity and bond issuances.

After practicing at Latham for seven years, Carla spent six years as senior counsel for a large private company, focusing on global corporate governance and corporate and financing transactions. While in New York, she served on the Advisory Board of New York Lawyers for Public Interest. 

Originally from Ashland, Carla returned to the area in 2020. She focuses her practice on estate planning, family and custody issues, real estate transactions, business and corporate governance matters, municipal law, and probate matters. 

Prior to her legal career, Carla spent three years living in a village in China, where she learned to speak Mandarin while helping establish and develop a private university focused on critical thinking. Carla has traveled extensively, studying at Oxford University as a visiting student while in college, studying Spanish at Salamanca University in Spain, and traveling to Africa as part of a women’s human rights clinic in law school to propose legislation to equalize inheritance rights in Eswatini (f/k/a Swaziland).

Harvard awarded Carla with the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Student Teaching, an award nominated by students, to recognize her achievements as a course assistant for a graduate-level microeconomics course. Hamline awarded Carla with the First Decade Award, an honor given annually to one Hamline alum for extraordinary achievements within the first ten years of graduation.

Outside of her legal work, Carla enjoys spending time with family and friends and focusing on federal and state policy initiatives, particularly those related to children and maternal health.