Cloyd is a retired Army infantry officer, having served over twenty-three years leading American soldiers in the United States, Germany, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, and Cameroon. He brings that same sense of duty to his clients in his practice of law.
Knowing he wanted to be a trial lawyer, Cloyd focused on criminal law to earn trial experience. While earning his Juris Doctorate, Cloyd interned at the United States Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., was a Moffit Scholar at the Public Defender’s Office in Alexandria, Virginia, and used his third-year practice certificate to try cases at the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office in Arlington, Virginia during his final year of law school. During his last year of law school Cloyd successfully prosecuted seven bench trials in Arlington General District Court, second-chaired a felony malicious wounding case in Arlington Circuit Court and earned an acquittal for a wrongfully arrested defendant in a felony jury trial in Alexandria Circuit Court.
After gaining some initial trial experience, Cloyd officially began his legal career serving as a Judicial Law Clerk for the Honorable Richard E. Gardiner of the Fairfax County Circuit Court. During his clerkship, Cloyd gained valuable experience researching the intricacies of Virginia law while drafting and editing legal opinions for numerous circuit court judges in complex civil litigation cases.
Prior to Founding Smith Trial Law, Cloyd worked at a popular law firm in Prince William County and a prestigious law firm in Fairfax, Virginia where his practice concentrated on complex civil litigation with a focus on business litigation and Trust and Estate Litigation.
Within his first year of practicing Trust and Estate Litigation, Cloyd won a case of first impression in the Virginia Supreme Court successfully arguing that a trust is not a contract that can be enforced against a beneficiary under the Federal Arbitration Act or the Virginia Uniform Arbitration Act. Anderson v. Boyle, 301 Va. 52, 871 S.E.2d 226 (2022).
He gives credit to his military career taking him all over the world for giving him a keen understanding and appreciation for how amazing this country and its legal system are. Cloyd lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and has four children: Sara, Caitlyn, Chloe, and Liam. When not in the office or in the courtroom, Cloyd can usually be found playing sports with his son Liam in the front yard or swimming in the back yard.
Publications: Greece and Oman: Successful Anglo/American Counterinsurgencies Viewed from the Current American Counterinsurgency Doctrine. BiblioScholar Dissertations, 2012.
