Hezzy Smith

Matthew S. Smith (“Hezzy”) is a trilingual, Fulbright award-winning attorney with over a decade of experience working with, training, and advocating for persons with intellectual and other disabilities in the United States, Bangladesh, Mexico, and beyond. As Director of Advocacy Initiatives at the Harvard Law School Project on Disability (HPOD), he works to empower people with disabilities and their representative organizations around the world through training, technical assistance, and research to undertake impactful advocacy. He has helped to shape disability rights strategic litigation and decisions by regional human rights tribunals, as well as domestic courts in Bangladesh, Mexico, and the United States. His disability rights scholarship has appeared in collections published by Cambridge and Oxford university presses, U.S. and international law reviews and academic journals, and prominent online outlets. A lifelong advocate for his sister, who has Down syndrome, he began work for HPOD in Bangladesh in 2009 and has since managed U.S. federal- and state-funded projects of increasing sophistication in the United States and abroad. He received his J.D. from American University, Washington College of Law, and his B.A. from Harvard University.

Additional Information

Representative publications from the past five years include:

• "How Can a New International Treaty Address Older Persons' Decision-Making Rights?" with Leslie P. Francis and Michael Ashley Stein, Just Security (Feb. 4, 2026). https://www.justsecurity.org/130270/international-treaty-older-persons-rights/

• "Medicaid Cuts Will Endanger a Lifeline for Persons with Intellectual Disabilities’ Community Integration, Empowerment, and More," with Anne Fracht, Sam Paster, and Anna Weinberger, Bill of Health [Blog] (July 1, 2025), https://petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2025/07/01/medicaid-cuts-will-endanger-a-lifeline-for-persons-with-intellectual-disabilities-community-integration-empowerment-and-more/

• “How to Give Supported Decision-Making ‘Teeth’: Recommendations From Two Self-Advocates and a Supporter," with Chester A. Finn and Anne Fracht, Inclusive Practices 3(3):87–97 (2024). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/27324745241242091

• “MGH’s R-Word Problem," The Boston Globe (Feb. 6, 2023). https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/02/06/opinion/mghs-r-word-problem/

• "Mobilizing Disabled Peoples’ Organizations to Implement Bangladesh’s Disability Law," with Md. Rejaul Karim Siddiquee, Michael Ashley Stein, and Janet E. Lord, 

  Journal of Human Rights Practice 13(2):433-445 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/huab034

• "How to Strengthen the Americans with Disabilities Act after 30 Years: Promoting Supported Decision-Making for Persons with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities," with Bill Alford, Anne Fracht, and Marie Hennessy, Harvard Law Review [Blog] (Aug. 7, 2021). https://harvardlawreview.org/blog/2021/08/how-to-strengthen-the-americans-with-disabilities-act-after-30-years-promoting-supported-decision-making-for-persons-with-intellectual-and-developmental-disabilities/