Word: smith
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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Does that mean the relationship revert to the cozy intimacy of former years, when the Attorney General sometimes too readily did the bidding of his boss? Replies Smith: "Obviously, the Justice Department has to be independent, but it is part of the Executive Branch. Independence relates only to certain kinds of activities; for instance, those involving the White House itself." People who know both Reagan and Smith are convinced that there is no cause for concern. Smith, one of three managing partners of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, the second largest law firm in Los Angeles, has a solid reputation for being...
Born to a Boston Brahmin family, Smith learned to love California while wintering there as a boy. After graduating from U.C.L.A. and Harvard Law School ('42) and a stint in the Navy, he decided to practice law in California. "I wasn't going to be dictated to by my ancestors," he says. "I came to Los Angeles principally because that was the place where things were going to happen." He specialized in handling labor matters for corporate clients. Though a forceful negotiator, he won the respect of his adversaries. Says William Robertson, executive secretary of the Los Angeles...
Though a lifelong conservative, Smith is no ideologue. Says a colleague in Los Angeles: "He's not going over any cliffs with all flags flying. He wants to be a team player, and that tempers his conservatism." Still, Smith is likely to come down on the conservative side of several divisive issues now before the Justice Department. Conservatives hope that he will go slow on prosecution of sex and racial discrimination cases, emphasize street crime over white-collar offenses and relax some of the department's trust-busting zeal. But he tends to wield a scalpel rather than...
...While Smith belongs to Los Angeles' best and, in some cases, most restrictive social clubs, he has a wide range of friends. He was an early supporter of Los Angeles' mayor Tom Bradley, a Democrat and a black. Says Smith's law partner Paul Ziffren, a Democrat active in civil libertarian causes: "Smith has a strong and pure sense of noblesse oblige." Smith's second wife Jean is also heavily engaged in civic affairs; the attorney has four grown children from his first marriage, which ended in divorce. Smith is a fastidiously groomed, buttoned-down Establishment...
...Stephen Smith. Reported by Erik Amfitheatrof and Barry Kalb/Warsaw