Hans Smit, born in the Netherlands, graduated in Amsterdam and since 1960 professor at the Columbia Law School, has been a major significance for the Leiden Law School. He is the founding father of the Columbia-Leiden-Amsterdam Summer Program in American Law (1963), what will have its fiftieth anniversary next year. In 1992 he received the Meijers Medal of the Faculty.

See here the obituary that the Columbia Law School made of his life