Kim C. Smith

With the fall of Saigon, the capitol of South Vietnam, the North Vietnamese forces moved in to capture the city. At almost eighteen months old, I was fleeing my native born country along with tens of thousands of other South Vietnamese refugees in April of 1975. My American father was not going to leave me or my Vietnamese mother behind. We were quickly moved onto a military cargo plane with nothing more than the clothes on our backs, as the mass exodus began, and as the Vietnam War came to an end with the institution of the communist regime.

I look back over 40 years ago, and realize that every moment of my life was not by accident but by fate. I am truly fortunate to have made it out of that war-torn country to be where I am today. In elementary school I had to take ESL classes (English as a Second Language), since Vietnamese was all I knew. Unfortunately, as I progressed through my schooling, I lost the ability to speak but I can understand most conversational Vietnamese.

After graduating from high school in Houston, I went on to Texas A&M University at College Station to get my Bachelor of Arts Degree in English Rhetoric. I didn’t really know that I wanted to be an attorney until realizing three years in that I would make a terrible veterinarian. I attended law school at Thurgood Marshall School of Law in Houston, graduating early, and became licensed to practice law in the great State of Texas in May 2000.

I began my practice in the area of Workers’ Compensation with The Law Firm of Adam Henderson in Houston. After about four years, we decided to expand our practice into the Dallas-Fort Worth Area, and I opened our DFW location as The Law Office of Henderson & Kroenung. In 2008, we made a mutual business decision, and I moved on to become The Wyatt Law Firm and continued my practice strictly focusing on Workers’ Compensation.

Somewhere between Texas A&M and my managing my own firm in 2008, I was blessed with six lovely children, five boys and one little girl. Being a mom is who I am, and being an attorney is what I do.

A fortuitous meeting with Mr. Galyen in late 2013 led me to Bailey & Galyen, whereI now manage the Workers’ Compensation Department in the Arlington location.

PAST EMPLOYMENT POSITIONS

• The Wyatt Law Firm, Owner, 2008 - 2013
•Henderson & Wyatt, Associate, 2004 - 2008