About Jonathan Rigdon Smith
Jonathan Rigdon Smith Jr. combines decades of engineering work with a later-in-life legal career. He brings technical training in chemical engineering to cases that intersect patent law and environmental regulation. His path is not the standard one for a lawyer; it started within the plant and the lab and moved into the courtroom and the patent office.
He earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Virginia and later returned to school to earn a J.D. from Florida Coastal School of Law, completing law school in 2006. The two degrees bookend an extended expert timeline that crosses enterprise and legal practice.
Smith began his technical career as a studies engineer at Chesapeake Corporation of Virginia in 1969. He moved into consulting in the early 1970s as a senior consultant for Mead Corporation. Over the Nineteen Eighties and early Nineteen Nineties he labored in environmental management for paper and pulp companies, holding roles at Brunswick Pulp and Paper Co. and later at Georgia-Pacific Corporation. Those positions concerned operational oversight and regulatory interplay, and that they shaped his knowing of commercial processes and adherence.
In the 1990s he established his personal engineering practice, launching Rigdon Engineering in 1993 and later founding Rigdon Patents & Engineering in 2000. After finishing his law degree he shaped Jonathan Rigdon Smith, J.D., PC in 2007. He is a registered professional engineer in Georgia and is admitted to practice law in Georgia and Florida. He additionally holds registration to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and is admitted in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas and the Southern District of Georgia.
Smith’s work crosses technical and legal lines. He prepares and prosecutes patent applications, making use of hands-on experience from chemical and paper industry roles to patent drafting and prosecution in related technological know-how regions. He additionally advises on matters that sit at the junction of environmental regulation and industrial operations. His practice draws on decades of work in manufacturing and environmental control, paired with courtroom and administrative work on highbrow estate problems. He keeps his engineering license and continues to manage matters that require each an engineer’s background and an attorney’s training. His current practice focuses on patent prosecution and engineering-related legal matters.
