Legal Gender: WTS-LA’s Member of the Year Promotes Both

The title “WTS-LA Member of the Year” holds special significance. While all WTS-LA members ideally devote great time, effort, and energy to the chapter’s mission, the individual selected as Member of the Year does that and much, much more. In fact, they redefine what membership means through their indefatigable actions and extraordinary effectiveness in improving the chapter and its reputation, while truly helping the chapter grow, thrive, and advance women in transportation. This individual gives their all determinedly and consistently. This individual makes the chapter markedly better. This individual is Nossaman Partner and long-time WTS-LA Board member and advisor to the chapter president Nancy Smith.

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Smith can proudly claim to have done two very special things. She has profoundly changed both transportation and WTS-LA. That’s no small feat. But true to her modest demeanor, she’d be the last person to make that claim. Fortunately, the evidence presents itself. A transportation industry leader and a nimble, masterful legal scholar, Smith has represented transportation agencies in more than 25 states, often guiding them in their first use of alternative delivery methodologies. For example, she played a lead role for the Orange County Toll Road Agencies (contracts to develop and operate a toll-road network), the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority (Mid-Corridor Design-Build Project), Los Angeles Metro and the Exposition and Gold Line Construction Authorities (multiple transit-related projects), and the Port of Long Beach (International Gateway Bridge)—all signature Southern California projects that have helped transform transportation in the region. Of course, that’s not all she’s done.

Smith helped obtain passage of legislative authorization to permit the use of design-build for federally funded projects, as well as design-build and public-private partnership authorization in California and other states. She routinely speaks on alternative delivery at conferences and seminars, including several WTS International conferences. And she’s authored numerous articles, book chapters, and major reports on a vast range of transportation-related topics. Her bonafides in transportation are stellar and would suffice for many. But Smith does so much more.

Keenly interested in advancing women in transportation, Smith boasts long, dynamic service to both WTS-LA and WTS International. Actively participating as a WTS-LA board member since 2000, she continues to provide absolutely invaluable pro bono legal counsel to the chapter. She’s also chaired three WTS-LA committees and been an official Advisor to the WTS-LA President. A natural chapter ambassador, Smith also promotes women in every capacity in which she serves. But she doesn’t limit her efforts to WTS.

Actively advancing women and WTS at work as well, Smith serves as a conduit between her firm and the chapter, encouraging Nossaman employees to join the chapter and become actively involved. In fact, she’s encouraged firm attorneys in other cities to seek out local WTS chapters and to participate meaningfully. At work in Los Angeles, she’s helped pave the way for many women to advance as well, mentoring them and even recruiting them to Nossaman’s Infrastructure Practice Group. She’s also helped non-attorneys at the firm advance. In short, wherever she is and whatever she is doing, she views her activities and good works through the lens of WTS-LA’s mission to advance women in transportation. More than that, she acts to make it so.

For a lifetime of service to WTS-LA and its mission and for her extraordinary, vigorous commitment to bettering women in transportation and the law, WTS-LA proudly names Nossaman Partner Nancy Smith as the 2022 WTS-LA Member of the Year.