LSBA Board of Governors
Third Board District
Ms. Dwazendra Jne' Smith
2020-2023
1030 Lafayette St
Lafayette, LA 70501
Phone: (337) 534-4020
Fax: (337) 534-4022
Dwazendra J. Smith is a partner in the Opelousas office of Doran & Cawthorne, P.L.L.C. She received a BA degree in political science in 2006 from Louisiana State University-Shreveport and her JD degree in 2009 from Southern University Law Center. She was admitted to practice in Louisiana in 2009 and in Texas in 2015.
Dwazendra is currently an adjunct professor teaching criminal law at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and teaching professional responsibility at Mitchell Hamline School of Law.
She served in the Louisiana State Bar Association’s (LSBA) House of Delegates from 2014-20. She was a member of the 2013-14 Leadership LSBA Class and served on the LSBA Continuing Legal Education Program Committee and the Access to Justice Subcommittee on Pro Bono Award Nominations.
Dwazendra is a member of the Lafayette Parish Bar Association (since 2009), the American Bar Association (since 2009) and the Lafayette Volunteer Lawyers (LVL) Committee (since 2013). She served as president of the Lafayette Young Lawyers Association in 2015-16. She was a member of the Louisiana Bar Foundation’s Acadiana Community Partnership Panel in 2015-16.
She received the LSBA’s Pro Bono Publico Award in 2012 and 2015; the LSBA’s Pro Bono Century Award in 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2015; the Lafayette Bar Association’s Outstanding Attorney Award every year from 2010-2019; and the Lafayette Bar Association’s Top LVL Award in 2014 and 2015.
She is the mother of one child.