Ryan Aloysius Smith

Overview

Ryan Smith is a member of the firm’s white-collar, internal investigations and corporate compliance litigation practice group. He focuses on counseling clients in sophisticated criminal and civil matters, including those involving RICO, the False Claims Act, the Anti-Kickback Statute and a range of commercial disputes. Ryan is engaged in every aspect of his clients' defense, including drafting motions, briefs and memoranda in cases at both the federal and state level. He also has experience with civil and criminal appeals and postconviction proceedings. 

Prior to joining Stradley Ronon, Ryan was a litigation associate at an international law firm in Philadelphia. Before then, he was an associate and legal writer at a boutique criminal defense firm based in southeastern Pennsylvania. Ryan received his J.D., magna cum laude, from Temple University Beasley School of Law, where he was a Beasley Scholar. He served as a staff editor and research editor for the Temple Law Review and received multiple graduation awards for his research and writing. Throughout law school, Ryan had several legal internships, including working with the Philadelphia County District Attorney’s Office, the Defender Association of Philadelphia, the Federal Community Defenders for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the Montgomery County Public Defender’s Office. In his final law school semester, Ryan externed as a clerk for the Honorable Sierra Thomas Street in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. 

Ryan also was a founding member of Law Students for Equitable Responses to COVID-19, where he authored a King’s Bench petition filed in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and led a statewide initiative for an equitable alternative to bar exams during the pandemic. Ryan received his B.A., magna cum laude, in political science with a dual major in philosophy and minors in history and communication from Villanova University.

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Representative Matters

Ryan's matters include:*

  • secured reversal at the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania of the forfeiture of a former Philadelphia County Municipal Court judge’s state pension by the State Employees’ Retirement System (SERS). After the judge pleaded guilty to two charges of violating 18 U.S.C. Section 1001, making false statements to federal investigators, SERS informed him that by doing so, he forfeited his pension under the Public Employee Pension Forfeiture Act (Act 140) and that the violation of the federal statute was “substantially the same” as violating 18 Pa.C.S. Section 4906. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the statutes were not identical, overturning the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court’s ruling as precedent set in Merlino v. Philadelphia Board of Pensions and Retirement.
  • authored successful pretrial motion on behalf of defendant to exclude evidence of prior lawsuits in federal civil RICO litigation.
  • represented client at criminal sentencing hearing in the U.S. District Court for Eastern District of Pennsylvania on multiple charges of fraud and tax evasion. Obtained a sentence of six months’ imprisonment, where sentencing guidelines called for more than five years in prison.
  • authored successful motion to dismiss multiplicitous counts of criminal indictment in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. At a hearing on the motion, the Department of Justice agreed to withdraw the improperly charged counts.
  • successfully argued at preliminary hearing in the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas for the dismissal of burglary, robbery and theft charges in case involving allegations of sexual assault.
  • authored successful petition under the Pennsylvania Post Conviction Relief Act in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, where the district attorney’s office agreed that the petitioner’s sentence should be amended to reflect the terms of the guilty plea agreement.

*Includes representations prior to joining Stradley Ronon.

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Credentials

Bar Admissions
  • Pennsylvania
Court Admissions
  • U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Education
  • J.D., magna cum laude, Temple University Beasley School of Law
  • B.A., magna cum laude, Villanova University
Memberships

  • Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
  • Philadelphia Bar Association
  • Pennsylvania Bar Association
  • National Lawyers Guild
  • National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers

Recognitions

  • Louis M. Natali Prize for Criminal Defense Advocacy
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