Nick E. Smith served as the First Deputy Public Advocate for the City of New York, first appointed in March, 2019 and ending his tenure in June, 2024. He is a justice system and housing policy advocate and speaker. He's a proven change-maker. To read a more, see “Extended Biography.”

As First Deputy Public Advocate, Nick was responsible for representing Public Advocate Williams and leading the policy, legislative, communications and community engagement divisions of the agency. More about the duties of the Public Advocate, a citywide elected ombudsperson/legislator, is found here.

Previously, Nick served as a Legislative Representative in the de Blasio Administration. In this role, he negotiated more than 200 pieces of legislation and advised city agency heads, including on budget affairs. For example, he was lead negotiator for a law that made all calls from incarcerated persons on Rikers Island free.

He's had a series of additional roles in and out of government: 

• Deputy Chief of Staff for Williams during his council tenure-- where he was budget director, and conceived of, and co-founded the National Network to Combat Gun Violence (www.nncgv.org). 
• Director of Legislation and Communications for New York State Assembly Member Linda B. Rosenthal (D/WF-Manhattan). 
• Coordinator of the national, non-partisan Education from the Inside Out Coalition, which helped guide a coalition to push for Pell Grant restoration for in-prison college education. 
• Began career as an appointed commissioner for the City of Berkeley, California, where he chaired the Commission on Labor, and was the Mayor's appointee to the Housing Advisory Commission. These bodies advise the city council on policy. The housing commission is also an appeals board for landlord/tenant disputes.

Nick received his law degree from St. John's University School of Law and undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.