Smith T. Johnston joined the firm in 2026. His practice includes aviation law, products liability litigation, civil litigation, medical malpractice, subrogation litigation, and insurance coverage, in state and federal court. His engineering, technical, and professional experience allows him to bring a unique set of skills for effective and efficient applied jurisprudential counsel and advocacy to any legal challenge, no matter how complicated.
Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Johnston worked as a staff attorney of the judicial office of superior court for multiple judges throughout several judicial circuits in North Georgia. As a staff attorney, he gained invaluable judicial courtroom experience, in addition to court-operations and non-courtroom casework. Significantly, superior courts are comprehensive trial courts with both civil and criminal case dockets, and they are also courts of equity (injunctions, declaratory judgments, etc.). Notable past work includes assistance in presiding over and adjudicating a 30-day complex medical malpractice trial, including related pre-trial and post-trial motion practice, which concluded with a $47 million jury-verdict; complex civil litigation, including jury trial, pre-trial and post-trial motion practice; multi-day felony criminal trials, with some cases resulting in lifetime sentences; and pre-trial and post-trial motions practice for a wide variety of criminal and civil cases.
While with long-standing family roots in Georgia, he obtained his Juris Doctorate from the University of Houston Law Center; holds a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering and Applied Natural Sciences from the University of Colorado at Boulder; and is a former graduate student of the University of Chicago. While in law school, Mr. Johnston served as a Casenotes and Comments Editor of the Houston Journal of International Law, writing his Journal Comment on Thucydides and the American Constitution, and he was also honored to receive the Dean’s Scholarship.
Prior to law school, Mr. Johnston worked in the technology industry for a Silicon Valley startup that grew to national prominence, as well as in the aerospace industry on human factors, aircraft and spacecraft simulator design and operation, human spaceflight and aerospace medicine applications, and active and passive thermal control systems.
He is currently a member of the Georgia Bar Association’s Aviation Section and of the American Bar Association’s Forum on Air and Space Law. He is also a member of the ABA’s Section of Science & Technology Law, including the Privacy and Computer Crime Committee.
University of Houston Law Center, Houston, Texas J.D. – 2023
Houston Journal of International Law: Casenotes and Comments Editor
University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
M.L.A., Pre-Law Studies – 2020, no diploma
University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado
B.S., Aerospace Engineering – 2015
Select Publications
Smith T. Johnston, A Study on the Potential Legal Liability of Commercial Neurotechnology in the State of Georgia of the United States, Research Presentation, International Neuroethics Society, Annual Meeting, Munich 2025.
Smith L. Johnston, Jeffrey A Jones, Smith T. Johnston, Lessons Learned Part II: In-flight Medical Equipment, Capabilities, and Countermeasures; and New Medical Paradigms for the Future Flights to LEO and Beyond!, Chapter 20, Building a Spacefaring Civilization, Menarini Foundation, Elsevier Press, (1st ed.) (2025).
Jeffrey A Jones, Smith L. Johnston, Smith T. Johnston, Aly Alrabaa, Julian Schmidt, Michael Schmidt, Lessons Learned Part I: Medical Screening, Standards, and In-flight Medical Incidents, Events, or Risks, Chapter 19, Building a Spacefaring Civilization, Menarini Foundation, Elsevier Press, (1st ed.) (2025).
