Smith history

When Maynard Smith, Overton Currie, and Reg Hancock mailed this announcement about the founding of Smith, Currie & Hancock on October 1, 1965, who could have known that their collaboration would result in of one of the nation’s most recognized construction law and government contract practices.

By the time he was discharged in 1970, Smith had received two Purple Hearts and attained the rank of captain.

In 1971 Smith became the founding president of Federal Express, an express-delivery service that he envisioned as an integrated system of airplanes and trucks.

Luther House took over the firm’s leadership in 1973 and, incredibly, served as the managing partner for the next 23 years.

Back in Silicon Valley in the autumn of 1974, Jobs reconnected with Stephen Wozniak, a former high school friend who was working for the Hewlett-Packard Company.

Pictured above, from left to right, are Luther House, Overton Currie, Maynard Smith and Reg Hancock at our 10th Anniversary party in 1975.

The venture ultimately turned around, recording a profit in 1976.

Early in his long tenure, Smith Currie’s rapid growth required a move from the Fulton National Bank Building to the Harris Tower in Peachtree Center in 1977.

In 1983 the company recruited PepsiCo, Inc., president John Sculley to be its chief executive officer (CEO) and, implicitly, Jobs’s mentor in the fine points of running a large corporation.

He would later be renowned for his insistence that the Macintosh be not merely great but “insanely great.” In January 1984 Jobs himself introduced the Macintosh in a brilliantly choreographed demonstration that was the centrepiece of an extraordinary publicity campaign.

Smith International withdrew its bid in March 1985, by which time the company had spent $165 million in trying to buy Gearhart Industries.

Meanwhile, in 1986 Jobs acquired a controlling interest in Pixar, a computer graphics firm that had been founded as a division of Lucasfilm Ltd., the production company of Hollywood movie director George Lucas.

In December 1987, Smith International emerged from under the protective umbrella of bankruptcy, coming out of a year in which the company recorded $264.4 million in sales and registered a $26.1 million loss in earnings.

Net productivity per employee during 1988 stood at $126,000, an all-time high, fueling hopes that the company had begun to wrest free from the debilitating first half of the decade.

Over the following decade Jobs built Pixar into a major animation studio that, among other achievements, produced the first full-length feature film to be completely computer-animated, Toy Story, in 1995.

In 1997, Tom Kelleher became our third managing partner and remained in that role for the next decade.

Another first came in 1999, when the firm opened an office in Charlotte, North Carolina — its first office outside of Atlanta.

In January 2001, the Atlanta-based law firm of Smith & Fleming joined Smith Currie to further expand its construction and government contracting practices.

In 2003 Jobs was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer, and the following year he underwent a major reconstructive surgery known as the Whipple operation.

In 2005, Smith Currie moved its Atlanta office to its current location on the 26th and 27th floors of the Marquis One Tower in Peachtree Center.

He eventually sold the studio to the Disney Company in 2006.

To assist the industry in understanding the seismic changes brought on by the recession and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the firm published the 2nd edition of Federal Government Construction Contracts in 2010 — a publication that earned the endorsement of the AGC of America.

In August 2011 he resigned as CEO of Apple, and two months later, at age 56, he died.

Smith Currie began 2012 with another expansion when the Washington, D.C. firm of Saltman & Stevens P.C. joined our ranks, expanding our existing government contracts practice by adding specialized experience in the areas of concessioner contracts, timber contracts, and environmental law.

Entitled Robert Morris's Folly: The Architectural and Financial Failures of an American Founder (Yale University Press, 2014), this book explores the role of Morris's extraordinary attempt to build a palace in Philadelphia, designed by famed engineer P. C. L'Enfant, in his downfall.

On January 1, 2016, Dan McLennon and the McLennon Law Corporation joined Smith Currie’s San Francisco office.

In July 2019, the firm further strengthened its presence in the Carolinas and added its eighth office by joining forces with Matthew Cox in Columbia, South Carolina.