User:Janweh64/new/Austin Smith (attorney)

Austin Connell Smith (born June 3, 1982) is an American attorney and candidate for Congress. He has successfully argued several cases which have expanded the rights of student debtors in bankruptcy proceedings.

Career
Smith was previously a corporate attorney working in New York City when he began representing a pro bono client who had taken out a loan to study for the bar examination. In March 2016, Judge Carla Craig of the US Bankruptcy Court in Brooklyn, New York ruled in their favor, discharging $15,000 in private student loan debt through bankruptcy.

Since that time, Smith's work has been the subject of significant media and academic interest. In 2020, Smith won a landmark ruling at the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which cemented this new interpretation of the law and opened the door for broader debt relief. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Tenth Circuit's decision "has implications for the millions of Americans grappling with student debt on top of the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic and the recession." Smith's work is estimated to encompass upwards of a million struggling borrowers and may ultimately lead to the erasure of $50 billion in private student debt. Writing for Above the Law, Ian Frisch said that Smith "is the first person in the history of government and law to fight in bankruptcy court to discharge student loans for distressed borrowers."

In March 2021, Smith filed paperwork to seek the Democratic nomination in New York's 1st congressional district to unseat Lee Zeldin. In April 2021, Congressman Lee Zeldin announced his intention to run for Governor of New York, leaving the House seat open in 2022.