Ralph H. Smith II, special counsel in the firm's Birmingham office and CEO of the Ralph Smith Group, was a featured speaker at the Birmingham Bar Association's Future Leaders Forum on November 12, 2013. Mr. Smith's presentation, titled "Challenge and Opportunities for Corporate Leadership in 21st Century Alabama," emphasized setting high ethical and professional standards and applying one's talents and training for the benefit of the community. The Birmingham Bar Association's Future Leaders Forum cultivates leaders from among a group of motivated attorneys who have been practicing law for three to seven years.

About Ralph Smith and the Ralph Smith Group
For almost a decade, Ralph Smith was General Counsel and a Member of the Chancellor's Senior Policy Staff at The University of Alabama System, where he also served as Distinguished Lecturer of Law and Special Advisor for International Trade and Economic Development. He founded the Ralph Smith Group (www.ralphsmithgroup.com) in 2012 to provide global management consulting services to business and higher education. Mr. Smith is a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of American Rhodes Scholars and is responsible for the Rhodes Scholarship selection process in Alabama, Florida, and Tennessee. A corporate and business transactions lawyer by training, he attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar from 1973-1976 and helped launch in 2012 the Global Innovation Alliance, a consortium of business, academic and government institutions around the world to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. In 2013 Mr. Smith was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II to the Order of St. John, an Order of Chivalry of the British Crown with historical roots in the 11th century Knights Hospitaller and Knights of Malta.

About Jones Walker
Jones Walker LLP, with more than 375 attorneys, provides a comprehensive range of legal services to a national and international corporate client base through offices in Alabama, Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, and Texas.