Ashley C. Smith

Dorot Fellow

Ashley Smith is the 2011-2012 Dorot Fellow at Alliance for Justice where she works on issues including judicial nominations, access to justice, civil justice, and ethics in the courts.  A graduate of Albany Law School, Ashley worked as a 2010 Summer Associate at AFJ, focusing on the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court of the United States and judicial ethics research in anticipation of potential Deepwater Horizon litigation.  Ashley served in Albany Law’s Civil Rights and Disabilities Law Clinic and interned in the New York State Senate Policy Research Group in 2010.  She was a member of the Albany Law Journal of Science and Technology and president of the Albany Law Civil Liberties Union.  Prior to law school, Ashley served for over a decade as the Associate Minister of First Baptist Church of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, a member congregation of the Alliance for Baptists, the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, and the American Baptist Churches, U.S.A. where her work included extensive involvement in social justice issues and advocacy for the importance of the separation of church and state.  She is an ordained minister with a M.Div. from Colgate Rochester Crozer Theological Seminary in Rochester, New York.   Ashley received her B.A. in English Literature and Women’s Studies from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts.  While technically from just across the border in New York, she considers the Berkshires of western Massachusetts as home.