Sean Smoot
Mr. Smoot is the Managing Partner of 21CP Solutions and a subject matter expert on policing and public safety. He is also the Director of the Police Benevolent & Protective Association and the Police Benevolent Labor Committee in Illinois. Mr. Smoot serves on teams monitoring federal consent decrees including the police departments in Baltimore and Cleveland. He consults internationally on issues related to Public Employment Labor Law, Pension & Benefits Law, Section 1983 Civil Rights Litigation, Body Worn Cameras, Use of Force, Supervision, Officer Safety & Wellness, Recruiting, Retention, and Hiring.
He has served on the Advisory Committee for the National Law Enforcement Officers' Rights Center in Washington, D.C. since 1996 and was a Member of the Executive Session on Policing and Public Safety at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, from 2008 through 2014. He also served as a police and public safety policy advisor to the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Teams and was a Member of President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing.
Mr. Smoot is the Area 4 Vice-President of the National Association of Police Organizations (“NAPO”), a national law enforcement advocacy group representing over 250,000 police officers. He also serves on the Advisory Committee at the Chicago-Kent College of Law’s Public Sector Labor Relations Law Program. In 2015, then Governor Bruce Rauner appointed him to the Illinois Commission on Police Professionalism and in 2020 he was appointed by Governor J.B. Pritzker to the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board (“ILETSB”). He is currently ILETSB’s Chairman.
Mr. Smoot holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Criminal Justice Sciences from Illinois State University and a Juris Doctor degree from the Southern Illinois University School of Law, where he served as the Business Editor of the SIU Law Journal. He holds several Certificates in Police Union Leadership from the Harvard Law School and was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court in June of 2011. Mr. Smoot spent twelve years as an elected Alderman and more than a decade as the Police Commissioner in Leland Grove, Illinois. He has been recognized as one of the “Top Employment & Labor Attorneys in Illinois” by the publishers of Chicago magazine.