Her father, John Smith, was at that time the member of Parliament for North Lanarkshire, and later served as the leader of the Labour Party from 1992 until his death in 1994.

[6] She has primarily worked in reparation and public law, specialising in cases involving personal injury, clinical negligence and judicial review.

Smith was appointed to the panel of counsel to the Equality and Human Rights Commission in 2015, and has been an advocate member of the Scottish Civil Justice Council since 2020.

[1][7] As a trustee of the John Smith Trust since 2005,[1] she visited Kyiv and Warsaw in 2023 to support rule-of-law and human-rights projects.

[9] Her appointment marked the first time that all three Scottish law officers were women, alongside Dorothy Bain (Lord Advocate) and Ruth Charteris (Solicitor General for Scotland).