David M. Smolin

American legal scholar

David Mark Smolin is a professor of law at Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama where he is the Harwell G. Davis Chair in Constitutional Law, director for The Center for Children, Law, and Ethics, former director of the Center for Biotechnology, Law, and Ethics, and faculty advisor for the Law, Science and Technology Society. Smolin deals with international adoption scandals (see child laundering) and is the creator of an informational website on international adoption called Adopting Internationally. He has been interviewed and submitted content on the subject to National Public Radio, ABC News, Al Jazeera, The New York Times, The Salt Lake Tribune, CBC Radio, Radio Netherlands and others. He presented on adoption issues at the Korean Women's Development Institute in Seoul, Korea, the Second International Symposium on Korean Adoption Studies in Seoul, Korea, and (as an independent expert) at the Hague Special Commission on the Practical Operation of the Hague Adoption Convention. His law review article, Child Laundering, written in 2005, won Cumberland's inaugural Lightfoot, Franklin and White Faculty Scholarship Award for the most significant scholarly work published during the preceding year, and is consistently listed in the 10 Most Popular Articles in the bepress Legal Series. His own family's international adoption, discovery that their children were stolen, and ultimately successful, though arduous, six year search for the girls' original birth family in India was featured on NPR's Morning Edition, titled Adoption Stories Gone Bad, Family and Juvenile law, and Law and Religion. He has testified before legislative committees in the U. S. Congress, as well as in five states on constitutional issues. Smolin joined the Cumberland faculty in 1987 after clerking for Senior Judge George Edwards of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit from 1986 1987. Prior to that Smolin worked in a psychiatric hospital. He has also served as an adjunct professor at the interdenominational Beeson Divinity School. Smolin is the author of over 35 articles, primarily published as law reviews, though some of his works have appeared in journals such as First Things. Much of Smolin's academic work concerns international adoption, child trafficking and child laundering.

Smolin and his wife launched Adopting Internationally website, a website meant to provide information regarding "the complex issues associated with international adoption." The site includes personal stories and academic analysis. The site is also based, in part, on the Smolin's personal experience in the field of international adoption, and the Smolins are unabashedly dedicated to reforming intercountry adoption "so that it may consistently and reliably assist all members of the adoption triad (birth families, adoptees, and adoptive families)."

Smolin heads Cumberland Law School's Center for Biotechnology, Law, and Ethics, a center unlike any other of its kind in the United States. Research focuses on contemporary bioethics dilemmas and issues related to the Center's Annual Symposium, which is typically co sponsored by the Cumberland Law Review. The Center has attracted numerous experts including ethicist Gregory Pence, atmospheric scientist John Christy, and U. S. Congressman Artur Davis. Each year the Cumberland Law Review typically publishes an issue featuring articles by visiting speakers.

Smolin is a human rights advocate but approaches the international movement with concerns, which can be summed up in the conclusion to his paper Will International Human Rights Be Used as a Tool of Cultural Genocide? The Interaction of Human Rights Norms, Religion, Culture, and Gender published by the Journal of Law and Religion. Smolin's basic view regarding the scope of the international movement is that not all worthy human causes deserve to be labeled or acted upon as a right. He believes that doing so could erode or destroy the most basic human rights if the international movement gained enough power to enact all of its goals.

Smolin was born in New York City, USA. His mother was the playwright Pauline Smolin, and his father was Michael Smolin, an environmental and process engineer. His brother Lee Smolin is a theoretical physicist. His wife is Desiree Smolin. They have eight children, two of whom were adopted from India in 1998.

Organizer and presenter, "The Baby Market: The Future of High Tech and Low Tech Markets in Children", February 14, 2008. Speaker, Adoption Ethics and Accountability Conference, October 15–16, 2007, The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute and Ethica, Inc., Arlington, Virginia. The Cultural Contexts of the Stem Cell Debate; Stem Cells: Diffusing the Rhetoric. North Carolina Central University School of Law, Durham, North Carolina, April 13, 2007. Sponsored by Durham's Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Law Institute and the North Carolina Research Campus. Speaker, Emory Law School, "What's Wrong With Rights for Children?" Oct. 20 21, 2005 Emory Law School Conference.