Robyn Smith

Of Counsel

Robyn Smith is of counsel with the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) concentrating on student loan and for-profit school issues. She also works on these issues as a senior attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. In 2024, Robyn was appointed to the Advisory Committee of the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education, the state agency that regulates for-profit colleges that operate in California. She served as the primary negotiator representing legal assistance organizations for the 2023-2024 Program Integrity and Institutional Quality negotiated rulemaking before the U.S. Department of Education.

Robyn is co-author of Examining the States’ Role in Protecting Online College Students from Predatory Practices, Collection At All Costs: Examining the Intersection of Mass Incarceration and the Student Debt Crisis, How States Can Help Students Harmed by Higher Education Fraud, and NCLC’s Student Loan Law Manual.

Prior to joining NCLC, Robyn worked at the California Attorney General’s Office, where she investigated and prosecuted businesses engaged in consumer fraud and unlawful business practices. Robyn also represented low-income consumers in a wide range of consumer law matters as the directing attorney of the Consumer Law Project at Public Counsel in Los Angeles and as the managing attorney of the Windward Branch of the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii on the island of Oahu. Robyn clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Judith Keep.

Education: 

J.D. University of Southern California Gould School of Law

B.S. Colorado State University