Loretta Smith, 60, lawyer and law foundation director

She traveled the country, defending Eli Lilly in product liability cases while carving out a reputation as a masterful legal writer sought for her appellate expertise.

But she rarely got to see her husband, Boston University law professor William Ryckman, and she felt life was slipping past them, she told him.

In 1994 she quit and started a career in public service law, working with two Massachusetts attorneys general. She also oversaw the New England Law Foundation and mentored scores of young lawyers.

“She was incredibly smart,’’ said Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, who became Ms. Smith’s friend during their Boston University Law School days in the 1970s. “She was one of the best legal minds I know. She also had a huge heart and was interested in getting fair and right results.’’

Ms. Smith, who was chief of the attorney general’s Government Bureau, collapsed at her home in Winthrop June 21 at age 60. She was pronounced dead at Whidden Memorial Hospital in Everett. Her husband of 16 years said she probably suffered a heart attack.

“A lot of people say being married to someone in the same profession is a bad idea,’’ he said. “In our case, it was a great idea.’’

He said their evenings together often meant lively talks about the law and time spent with their beloved cats.

The couple met in the 1970s, when she was a student in his first-year property law class at Boston University, and began dating in the 1980s, after a chance meeting in downtown Boston, he said.

Ms. Smith grew up in Pound Ridge, N.Y., and graduated from Fox Lane High School in 1967. She earned an undergraduate degree in American studies from Syracuse University in 1973 and came to Boston to study law.

She graduated from Boston University Law School in 1979 and was a law clerk for Associate Justice Robert Braucher of the Supreme Judicial Court, before becoming an associate in 1980 at what was then Goodwin, Procter & Hoar. She first worked in the firm’s real estate division and later in litigation.

“She was the person you went to whenever you had a hard legal problem to think through,’’ said Anthony Feehery, a Goodwin Procter partner.

Ms. Smith was a deep thinker who would listen intently to an issue, Feehery said. “A day or two later, she would provide you with a thoughtful, complete written product that would answer your questions and nine of the questions you didn’t think of asking.’’

After she left Goodwin Procter, Ms. Smith was an instructor in the first-year writing program at Boston University’s law school from 1995 to 1997.

She worked for Attorney General Scott Harshbarger as an assistant attorney general from 1996 to 1997 in the Administrative Law Division.

In 1997, Ms. Smith became legal director of a not-for-profit public interest firm, the New England Law Foundation.

In 2001 she was named an assistant district attorney in the appeals bureau of the Middlesex district attorney’s Office, when Coakley was district attorney. Ms. Smith worked on several major cases, including prosecution of Thomas Junta, who was convicted of beating a man to death at their sons’ hockey game, and of former priest Paul Shanley for child rape.

“She was an unusual personality,’’ Coakley said. “She was tough as nails on some issues. She did not suffer fools gladly.’’

At the same time, Ms. Smith was devoted to her friends and colleagues. On a Friday afternoon, hours before she died, Ms. Smith had led a staff meeting at the attorney general’s office, where division chiefs discussed their work.

“She was just so proud of them and what they’d done,’’ Coakley said. “She was a great mentor.’’

In addition to her husband, Ms. Smith leaves a sister, Teri Zander of Owego, N.Y.; a brother, Thomas Smith of Randolph, N.H.; a nephew; and two nieces.

A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. on July 18 at Boston University. The location on campus will be announced later.