PI Associate Takes Cousin’s Case and Wins in the Supreme Court
Personal injury associate J. Craig Smith couldn’t turn down his father’s request to take on the case of his cousin Norman, who was fired from his job as a supervisor for a carpet manufacturer after alleging the company was hiring undocumented aliens.
“When my father called me from Georgia [in 2006] about Norman being fired, I didn’t know if I could do anything for him,” Smith told the Connecticut Law Tribune. “But my Dad said, ‘Remember who you are, and where you’re from—we stick by our own.’ I knew I had to do right by Norman.”
Smith stuck with cousin Norman Carpenter all the way to a U.S. Supreme Court victory on a privilege issue.
At the time of the call, Smith was a fourth-year associate at personal injury law firm Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder in Connecticut. He worked on the case along with a two-person employment law firm in Atlanta—until cert was granted. Smith began getting calls from Supreme Court specialists, who warned he wouldn’t stand a chance unless they got involved, the story says. Smith turned them down and hired Yale law professor Judith Resnik; they sat together at the counsel table when the case went to the Supreme Court.
The privilege dispute concerned whether Carpenter’s employer, Mohawk Industries, could immediately appeal a decision requiring the company to disclose records of a conversation between Carpenter and one of its lawyers. Carpenter claims the lawyer pressured him to recant allegations that the company was hiring immigrants who weren’t qualified to work in the United States.
In a Dec. 8 opinion by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Supreme Court sided with Carpenter, ruling the company wasn’t entitled to an immediate appeal of the privilege issue.
Smith’s bio with the Koskoff firm says he had a successful career as an actor before entering the legal profession. He has had roles in the movie Queen, the sequel to Roots, and the television show In the Heat of the Night.
Smith told the Connecticut Law Tribune his cousin was pleased with his Supreme Court performance. “Norman called me this morning and just let out a ‘yee-haa’—a real rebel yell. He’s just so happy with the result, and looking forward to getting together for Christmas. I’m really glad that by helping my cousin, we were also able to help claimants all over the country.”
