Brad Smith

Brad Smith leads Microsoft's Department of Legal and Corporate Affairs, which is responsible for the company's legal work and for government, industry, and community affairs activities.

Since becoming General Counsel in 2002, Smith has led Microsoft's successful negotiations with numerous government agencies and other technology companies on competition and intellectual property issues. He has sponsored the company's efforts to work with governments to protect Internet safety, protect free expression on Internet blogs, and expand philanthropic activities, including through technology training for the underprivileged and improved math and science education in the public schools.

Smith has been involved in refugee and pro bono activities on behalf of Microsoft since joining the company in 1993. Microsoft was the first corporate partner of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, initially helping UNHCR to develop and deploy information technology to provide identity cards and reunite refugee families in Bosnia. Microsoft subsequently has helped UNHCR utilize this and other new technologies around the world.

Microsoft has partnered with law firms in the Seattle area to create Volunteer Advocates for Immigrant Justice (VAIJ), a nationally-recognized pro bono initiative that Microsoft funds and that provides legal representation for refugees in the Puget Sound area. Tapping the services of Microsoft lawyers and paralegals, together with many others in the local legal community, VAIJ's work has ensured that every unaccompanied minor in Washington State who faced a deportation or removal proceeding had the benefit of legal counsel.

Smith also co-chairs the Advisory Board for the Corporate Pro Bono Challenge. Microsoft is a Charter Signatory for the Challenge, a national partnership project of the Association of Corporate Counsel and the Pro Bono Institute, which encourages corporate legal staff and their law firms to participate in pro bono service.

A summa cum laude graduate from Princeton University, Smith received the Class of 1901 Medal, the Dewitt Clinton Poole Memorial Prize, and the Harold Willis Dodds Achievement Award, the highest award given to a graduating senior at commencement. He was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar at the Columbia University School of Law, where he received the David M. Berger Memorial Award. He also studied international law and economics at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland and has lectured at the Hague Academy of International Law.