M. Patricia Smith is currently retired. During the Biden administration, she was the Senior Counselor to the U. S. Secretary of Labor and acting Chief of Staff. In those roles she advised the Secretary and worked on numerous projects designed to implement the President’s “good Jobs” initiative.

From March 2017 to January 2021 she was of Counsel at the National Employment Law Project. She played a central role in developing and implementing a wide range of advocacy strategies, including litigation, to fight attacks on workers and to continue to advance a pro-worker agenda at the federal level and in the states.

From March 2010 to January 2017, she was the Solicitor of Labor at the U.S. Department of Labor. As solicitor she served as the chief legal adviser to two secretaries of labor and directed a staff of over 650 across the country. She played a key role in the Labor Department’s signature achievements under Barack Obama, including rules advancing overtime protections, regulations protecting workers from deadly silica and coal dust, and a rule designed to prevent financial advisers from mishandling workers’ retirement funds. She also worked with the DOL enforcement agencies in developing and implementing major enforcement initiatives, including the Wage and Hour Division’s misclassification initiative and OSHA’s temporary worker initiative.

From January 2007 to March 2010, Ms. Smith was the New York State Commissioner of Labor where she led the enforcement of labor laws throughout the state, the administration of the state’s unemployment insurance system, and the administration of the public workforce system.

She also previously served as chief of the Labor Bureau in the office of the New York state attorney general for eight years. In that role, she developed a system of active government labor law enforcement that became a model for other attorneys general and enforcement agencies across the country.

For eleven years prior to that, she served as the deputy labor bureau chief in New York and as the labor bureau’s section chief, conducting and overseeing all aspects of labor law litigation involving New York State in state and federal trial and appellate courts, including two cases before the United States Supreme Court.

Before joining the Office of the Attorney General, Ms. Smith worked for various Legal Services Organizations practicing employment law.

She graduated, cum laude, from Trinity College in Washington, D.C. in 1974 and from New York University School of Law, with honors, in 1977.