Former CUNA Director Gets Nod From Pres. Biden for Chief Legal Spot at HUD

President Joe Biden nominated CUNA’s former Senior Director of Advocacy and Counsel, Damon Smith, to serve as general counsel at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Smith’s nomination, announced on Wednesday, might not come as a complete surprise since he served as the Senior Counsel and Acting General Counsel at HUD in 2014 during the Obama-Biden Administration.

In a statement from CUNA, Smith contributed to regulatory analysis for CUNA’s advocacy team, with a specific focus on housing policy and finance issues. Smith departed CUNA in January of this year to serve as the acting General Counsel for HUD.

“We couldn’t be happier for our friend and former colleague, Damon,” Ryan Donovan, CUNA’s chief advocacy officer, said. “He is an accomplished attorney who has and will serve HUD very well. We congratulate him on his nomination.”

This is a Senate-confirmed position. If approved, Smith’s role would be the chief legal position at HUD.

According to the nomination announcement from the Biden Administration, Damon provided legal and policy guidance on a range of programs and activities and set the department’s litigation strategy and regulatory agenda during the Obama Administration. Before his government service, he taught property and local government law as an associate professor at Rutgers-Camden Law School and a visiting professor at the American University Washington College of Law. Smith began his legal career as a real estate associate at Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C., and worked prior to law school as an urban planner in East St. Louis, Ill., and St. Louis.

Smith graduated from Harvard Law School and holds a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in urban planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.