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Behind the Scenes with 6 Top Women
Litigators
June/July 2002
Practicing from Anywhere with a Cell Phone and a Laptop
Suzelle Smith is the first to admit she is a hired gun. "If it involves
trials, we do it,: she said of her 10-member Los Angeles-based firm, Howarth &
Smith.
What put this top litigant on the map was serving as lead trial counsel for
automaker Suzuki in product liability cases involving its Samurai sport utility
vehicle.
 "Suzuki
had some big, bad judgments entered against it and conducted a national search
for a different type of representation. The company wanted a woman as the lead
trial lawyer," she explained. "By that time, I had gone over to the plaintiff’s
side, but Suzuki made me an attractive offer – I would direct the troops of
prominent, well-respected corporate defense firms. It turned out to be fun and
interesting."
She tried one of the Suzuki cases in a small town in Georgia against one of
the state’s most prominent plaintiff’s attorneys.
"He was in his own back yard and had a young paraplegic as a client," Smith
said, "but we got a defense verdict in three hours. [The plaintiff’s lawyer]
told me he had never before lost one of his 170 cases. For me, it was really my
‘coming of age’ case."
These days, she handles primarily plaintiff’s cases in a broad variety of
cases. Last winter, she was asked to join the legal team representing the
plaintiffs in the first class action lawsuit filed against the Sept. 11
terrorists.
She wouldn’t be able to do it as seamlessly as she does, Smith said, without
technology.
"Our firm has an almost virtual office situation. Nine years ago, my partner
and I were visiting fellows at Oxford and Cambridge Universities in England. One
of our legal assistants told us to take a laptop computer, saying it would
change our lives," she recalled.
"We were writing a book – longhand on legal pads and by dictaphone. So we
took the laptop, and played with it. We came back home completely converted."
The firm, she said, has slowly but surely evolved technologically. Everyone
form the receptionist to the senior partners has a laptop, and those who want
one also have a desktop computer. Howarth & Smith employs a number of legal
assistants with small children who can work from home if they need to stay there
with a sick child. It also has on staff a full-time computer "guru" who keeps
the server and all the laptops running at all times. "He knows he has to keep
the system up no matter what," she said.
The firm is so mobile that when the terrorists attacked on Sept. 11 and
downtown Los Angeles was closed as a security precaution, the members of Howarth
& Smith "didn’t miss a beat except for being glued to our TVs," Smith said.
"Everyone could operate from home."
She said her laptop and cell phone have given her the flexibility to have a
national and international practice and still spend time with her 12- and
15-year-old sons.
"With those two pieces of equipment, I can practice law anywhere. I can do
Westlaw and LexisNexis research from a laptop. I can edit a brief and send it
back to the office to be filed," Smith said. "There are eight law firms
representing the plaintiffs in the Sept. 11 class action. We communicate via
group e-mail so we all know what the others are doing all the time."
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