Prof. Mark W. Smith

Professor Mark W. Smith is a Presidential Scholar and a Senior Fellow in Law and Public Policy at The King’s College. Professor Smith is also a Visiting Fellow in Pharmaceutical Public Policy and Law in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford. 

Professor Smith is a New York Times bestselling author and author of many law review articles, including in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and the Catholic University Law Review. He is the Host of The Four Boxes Diner Youtube channel, where he provides regular, in-depth analysis of Second Amendment issues. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel. Professor Smith has spoken at the Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, Princeton University, Columbia Law School, and the Wharton Business School (MBA) at the University of Pennsylvania.  

Following his graduation from the New York University School of Law, Professor Smith served as a federal law clerk before joining the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom as an associate. He then moved to the firm of Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman LLP, where he became an equity partner. In 2007, he founded the firm of Smith Valliere PLLC, which had offices on Madison Avenue and at Rockefeller Plaza in midtown Manhattan. In 2015, Smith Valliere PLLC was named the Small Law Firm of the Year in New York City by SmartCEO Magazine.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Professor Smith is the author of six books, including First They Came for the Gun Owners and #Duped: How the Anti-gun Lobby Exploits the Parkland School Shooting.

SELECTED ACADEMIC ARTICLES

Mark W. Smith, Dan M. Peterson, Big Data Comes for Textualism: The Use and Abuse of Corpus Linguistics in Second Amendment Litigation, SSRN-id3887060 (2021) (forthcoming Drake L. Rev. Spring 2022).

Mark W. Smith, Second-Class Rights and Second-Class Americans: Applying Carolene Products Footnote 4 and the Court’s Enforcement of Nationally Accepted Norms Against Local Outlier Jurisdictions in Second Amendment Enforcement Litigations, 70 Cath. U. L. Rev. 83 (2021).

Mark W. Smith, “Assault Weapon” Bans:  Unconstitutional Laws for a Made-Up Category of Firearms, 43 Harv. J. of L. and Pub. Pol’y 357 (Spring 2020).

Mark W. Smith, Enlightenment Thinker Cesare Beccaria and His Influence on the Founders: Understanding the Meaning and Purpose of the Second Amendment’s Right to Keep and Bear Arms, 2020 Pepperdine L. Rev. 71 (2020).

Mark W. Smith, Violence in the Streets? Hardly. Even Under the “Tiers of Scrutiny” Approach to Judicial Review, State Actors Cannot Justify Restricting the Right to Carry Firearms Based on Contemporary Criminological Studies, 53 Texas Tech L. Rev. 165 (2020).

Mark W. Smith, A Judicial Teaching Point: The Lesson of the Late Justice John Paul Stevens in Sony v. Universal City Studios as a Response to Civil Lawfare, 1 Arizona State Univ. Corporate and Business L. J. 71 (2020).

Mark W. Smith, Fischer’s Fallacies and Firearms in America: What Can David Hackett Fischer’s Historical Fallacies and Paradigms Teach Us About the Constitutional Text, History and Tradition? SSRN-id544522 (Aug. 2,2020).

*****

A person listed as a contributor has spoken or otherwise participated in Federalist Society events, publications, or multimedia presentations. A person's appearance on this list does not imply any other endorsement or relationship between the person and the Federalist Society. In most cases, the biographical information on a person's "contributor" page is provided directly by the person, and the Federalist Society does not edit or otherwise endorse that information. The Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues. All expressions of opinion by a contributor are those of the contributor.