Early Life and Career
Smith was born in Portland in 1973 to attorney and former Umatilla County district attorney R. P. Joe Smith and family therapist Suzanne Peck. He was named for U.S. President Thomas Jefferson. He is a great-great-great grandnephew of Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism. His parents split before his second birthday, and he moved with his mother to South Pasadena, California. He returned to Portland during his seventh-grade year, and later became class president at Grant High School. His mother died of breast cancer when Smith was a teenager.
Smith earned a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Oregon, where he was a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. At his father's insistence, he took a year off during college, serving as a youth counselor in Lane County and then running youth sports programs in Washington, D.C. Smith went on to earn a law degree from Harvard Law School, where he finished in the top five percent in his class.
Following law school, Smith took a job at the New York City law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. His second day on the job, he was asked to take a case defending tobacco companies. He declined, and returned to Oregon. He took a job with Stoel Rives, but became motivated to establish an organization dedicated to engaging young people with progressive politics. He soon left the law firm, founding the Bus Project in 2001.
Read more about this topic: Jefferson Smith (Oregon Politician)
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