Circuit Judge R. Lee Smith was appointed to the bench in 2016. He earned his undergraduate degree from Florida State University and his Juris Doctor from Florida Coastal School of Law. He was admitted to The Florida Bar in 2003 and previously served as legislative counsel in Washington, D.C., for Congressman Ander Crenshaw, as an Assistant State Attorney and Chief of the Traffic Homicide Division in the Fourth Judicial Circuit, and as an Assistant State Attorney in the State Attorney’s Office of the Seventh Judicial Circuit. He currently hears civil cases at the Richard O. Watson Judicial Center in St. Augustine.