Godfrey Smith
Founder and Senior Partner
Anthony Astaphan S.C. who practices throughout the Eastern Caribbean said of Godfrey Smith as a judge that he “added great competence to the bench”.
Peter Foster QC of the Saint Lucia Bar said Justice Smith “is of very high intellect; seems to possess limitless energy in dealing with matters and writing well-reasoned judgments in the shortest time.” He is “the example of what a judge ought to be and may well be that standard”.
Godfrey Smith SC is the founder and senior partner of the firm. His extensive local, regional and international experience includes serving as Attorney General of Belize (1999-2003), Foreign Minister of Belize (2003-2005) and as a High Court judge and acting Justice of Appeal of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (2017-2020) where he quickly developed a reputation for delivering sound, high quality judgments at a rapid rate.
As Attorney General of Belize (1999-2004), he authored and led implementation of “Delivering Justice”, a strategic plan promoting judicial independence; improved conditions of service for judges; digitization of vital statistics; continuing education for magistrates; a draft Legal Aid Bill; citizens advice bureaus; new civil procedure rules to facilitate access to justice; digitization of the laws of Belize; significant constitutional reform; introduced modern intellectual property laws; and annual conference of judges, magistrates, and lawyers called the Bench and Bar Colloquium.
In private practice, Godfrey Smith specializes in commercial and public law litigation. In addition to the local courts in Belize, he has appeared before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the Caribbean Court of Justice, the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights in Washington DC and the Court of Arbitration for Sports in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is one Belize’s leading lawyers and is regularly instructed on complex, controversial and high profile cases.
Clients describe him as “highly analytical and a great advocate who keeps the facts at his fingertips”. He is considered to be “excellent on paper, gives clear, lightning-fast legal advice” and is “at his best resolving knotty and complex matters.”
Apart from his judicial and legal career, Godfrey is an award-winning writer; Chairman of Commonwealth Writers’ Conversation (Dhaka 2012); Chairman of the Commonwealth Book Prize (2013); Judge of the Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize (2014) and Founding Editor of the Belize Law Review and the Belize Law Reports.