JAMES M. SMITH is General Counsel of Big Bang Broadband LLC (“BBB”). Mr. Smith provides a full suite of legal, regulatory and government relations representation for BBB and its carrier, service provider and enterprise clients, including contract formation and negotiation services, regulatory advice and representation, dispute resolution, and public policy advocacy at the federal, state, local and international levels.
Mr. Smith is a 41-year veteran of the telecommunications and information industry, as telecom company executive, national industry association CEO, attorney and public policy professional. With BBB and as principal in the Law Office of James M. Smith in Washington, D.C., he has provided legal, regulatory and transactional counsel as well as arbitration and consulting services, specializing in a wide range of telecommunications industry issues and transactions; strategic planning; counselling on telecom and information industry law, policy, regulation and compliance; has served as an expert witness on telecommunications law and regulation matters in civil litigation proceedings; has represented wireline and wireless service providers, federal and state universal service fund program participants and applicants and grantees in federal and state broadband infrastructure deployment programs; has provided expert counsel in privacy, security and data breach matters and risk assessment; and has provided public policy advocacy on behalf of clients and national organizations, including testifying before Congress on multiple occasions.
Prior to his work for BBB and his founding of the Law Office of James M. Smith in 2018, Mr. Smith spent over 15 years as a telecommunications attorney in the Washington, D.C. office of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, an international law firm with a significant telecommunications, transactional and corporate practice. His practice centered on telecom regulatory advice, public policy advocacy, and transactional and contract representation. He frequently represented telecom clients and coalitions before governmental bodies and as an author, speaker and commentator.
Prior to joining Davis Wright, from 1997 until 2002 Mr. Smith served as Vice President-Law and Public Policy of Dallas-based Excel Communications, Inc., then the fifth largest interexchange telecom provider in North America. At Excel, he headed the company’s regulatory, government relations and independent representative compliance departments and founded its Washington, D.C. policy office.
From 1990 until 1997, Smith was President and CEO of the Competitive Telecommunications Association (CompTel; now INCOMPAS), the national industry association of U.S. competitive telecommunications providers. While at CompTel, he was a founder and principal of the Competitive Long Distance Coalition that drafted and secured critical pro-competitive provisions of the landmark Telecommunications Act of 1996, and gave frequent testimony before Congress and state legislatures and regulatory authorities. Prior to his tenure at CompTel, he was a partner in the Washington law firms Reed Smith Shaw & McClay and Pierson, Ball & Dowd.
Smith also served the U.S. Department of State as the principal aide to the U.S. Ambassador to the World Administrative Radio Conference on the Uses of Space (Space WARC) in Geneva, Switzerland. He has served on the Boards and Executive Committees of several industry and professional associations and civic groups, including CompTel, CALTEL, TexAlTel and the Federal Communications Bar Association, and the Executive Committee of the Leukemia Ball of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America. He is currently President of the Arlington (Virginia) Sports Hall of Fame and is Past President of the Better Sports Club of Arlington. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and the Georgetown University Law Center, cum laude, where he was an editor of the American Criminal Law Review.