Whitney T. Smith is an attorney at Panish | Shea | Boyle | Ravipudi LLP and focuses her practice on wrongful death, catastrophic personal injury, and premises liability cases throughout California and Nevada. Motivated by her passion to serve others and her community, Ms. Smith is dedicated to ensuring her clients receive the maximum recovery available and holding corporations, public entities and individuals accountable for their negligence in causing her clients harm.
Prior to joining the firm as an attorney, Ms. Smith gained several years of legal experience working as a summer clerk at Panish | Shea | Boyle | Ravipudi LLP and later transitioning into a paralegal position at the firm. In that role, she was part of the legal teams that achieved some of the firm’s landmark verdicts and settlements including Diao v. Southern California Gas Company, Jun v. Chaffey Joint Union High School District, Casillas v. Landstar Ranger Inc., and Lee v. Pupil Transportation Cooperative
As an attorney with the firm, Ms. Smith has assisted Panish | Shea | Boyle | Ravipudi LLP partner Rahul Ravipudi and attorney Paul Traina in obtaining multiple seven-figure settlements for their clients. In her first year as a lawyer, she already has two trials under her belt with many more to come. In October 2019, Ms. Smith and Jake Douglass won a hard-fought victory against the County of Los Angeles when the jury awarded the plaintiff $513,485.22. Prior to trial, the County had offered the plaintiff just $15,000.00 to settle the case.
A 2018 graduate of Southwestern Law School and proud recipient of the Wildman/Schumacher Scholarship, Ms. Smith continued to work full-time at Panish | Shea | Boyle | Ravipudi LLP while attending school and serving as a research assistant for one of her professors. She graduated cum laude from Central Michigan University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science and a minor in Philosophy.
Ms. Smith is admitted to practice law throughout California and Nevada and is an active member of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles (CAALA), Nevada Justice Association (NJA), American Association for Justice (AAJ), and Consumer Attorneys of California (CAOC).
