I've spent my career in the rooms where consequential decisions get made — and I've learned that the quality of those decisions depends almost entirely on the quality of the people and the thinking behind them.

I grew up in New York and made my way to Portland by way of Lewis & Clark Law School — and like a lot of people who end up here, I never left. My professional life has taken me from the courtroom to the corner office to the statehouse and back, and across all of it, the through line has been the same: how do institutions serve people, and how do we make them better when they don't?

I served as Director of the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, where I led the state's primary criminal justice research and policy agency through a period of significant reform. We worked across party lines, across agencies, and across communities to build a more data-driven, more equitable approach to how Oregon administers justice. From there, I became the elected District Attorney of Multnomah County — leading the largest prosecutorial office in Oregon through one of the most closely watched and consequential chapters in its history.

Today I serve as General Counsel at the Urban League of Portland, Oregon's oldest civil rights organization, where I work at the intersection of law, advocacy, and community power.

Along the way, I started the SchmidtShow PDX — a podcast about Portland civic life that I keep separate from my day job on purpose. It's my space to ask hard questions, platform community voices, and push back on the narratives that too often substitute for real information in this city.

Dart PDX is where my consulting practice and the podcast live together. It's independent work, built on the belief that experience is most useful when it's shared — and that Portland deserves more honest, informed conversation about the systems that shape it.

If something on this site resonates with you, I'd love to hear from you.