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Our history
A Montpelier law practice, handed down through the family.
The Smith name has been on office doors in Montpelier for half a century. The firm has changed shape over the years, but the work and the place have stayed the same.
Where it started
From central Vermont in 1971 to Smith & Smith today.
Richard Linton Smith practiced law in central Vermont from 1971 to 2022. In 1974 he co-founded the Montpelier firm that became Cheney, Smith & Saudek, P.C., where he worked until 2012. His clients knew him for wills and estate planning, real estate, business matters, credit unions, and municipal law.
In 2012, Richard and his son Thomas Dawson Smith opened Smith & Smith PLLC, a successor to firms that had served Montpelier since 1974. Richard retired in 2022, and Thomas now carries the practice forward.
Richard and Thomas are the second and third generations of the Smith family to practice law in Montpelier.
How we work
Rooted here, and in it for the long term.
A firm that has been part of one community for fifty years tends to think in decades, not transactions. Many of the families and institutions we work with have known the Smiths for years, and a good number came to us through someone who did.
That continuity shapes the advice. We would rather help you get something right the first time than be called back to fix it later, and we are still here when the next question comes.
The attorney today
Meet Thomas Dawson Smith.
Thomas leads the practice now, advising clients across all five of the firm’s areas. He is known for explaining complicated legal questions in language clients can follow, and for an international background that is unusual for a small Vermont firm.
Read Thomas’s full profile