Scott Burnett Smith is the founder and chair of Bradley’s Appellate Litigation Practice Group. His practice covers class actions, ERISA litigation, complex litigation, and appeals. Scott has been involved in dozens of nationwide class actions in state and federal courts and has handled over 40 class action appeals. He is also regularly involved as the appellate lawyer embedded with a trial team in complex civil litigation. In that role, he has succeeded in having several multimillion-dollar injury verdicts, including punitive damages, remitted by the trial court or reversed and rendered by the appellate court.

Scott is a Fellow in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. He has been involved in 28 cases (two on the merits) before the U.S. Supreme Court. He has also been involved in over 230 appeals to the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits, the Alabama Supreme Court and Court of Civil Appeals, the Arkansas Supreme Court, the California Court of Appeals, the Georgia Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, the Minnesota Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, the Nevada Supreme Court, and the Texas Court of Appeals. Scott has presented oral arguments 30 times before appellate courts, including the Alabama Supreme Court and six federal courts of appeals.

Active in DRI - The Voice of the Defense Bar, Scott is a former national director on DRI’s Board of Directors. He is also the former chair of DRI’s Amicus Committee and former chair of DRI’s Appellate Advocacy Committee. In addition, he has served as chair of the DRI’s national Class Action seminar and writes and speaks regularly on class actions and appellate practice.

Bar Admissions

• Alabama, 1997
• Texas, 2020

• Supreme Court of the United States
• United States Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit
• United States Court of Appeals, 3rd Circuit
• United States Court of Appeals, 4th Circuit
• United States Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit
• United States Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit
• United States Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit
• United States Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit
• United States Court of Appeals, 10th Circuit
• United States Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit
• United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
• United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• United States District Court, Middle District of Alabama
• United States District Court, Northern District of Alabama
• United States District Court, Southern District of Alabama
• Supreme Court of Alabama

Education

• Vanderbilt University Law School, J.D., 1997, Order of the Coif; Vanderbilt Law Review, Senior Articles Editor; Moot Court Board, Alabama Law Foundation Scholarship
• Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Master of Theological Studies, 1997, Cornelius Vanderbilt Founder's Medal for First Honors (valedictorian); Faculty Merit Award, Dean's Scholarship
• University of Dublin, Trinity College, , 1993, Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar, 1992-1993; Graduate Studies in Creative Writing and Irish Literature
• Auburn University, B.A., 1991, summa cum laude