Mr Smith, a former deputy director of public prosecutions and NSW Crown prosecutor, announced on Wednesday he would not recontest the 2015 election.

"It is my intention to return to legal practice after the 2015 elections," Mr Smith said.

Mr Smith was axed as attorney-general in April, when the resignation of Barry O'Farrell as premier triggered a cabinet reshuffle by incoming Premier Mike Baird.

NSW Law Society president Ros Everett said Mr Smith was "very measured", and as a former prosecutor "certainly wasn't soft on crime".

"We found him to be really good in the way he consulted with all the stakeholders. He'd really look at all sides of the issue before he went through with any amendments [to the law]," Ms Everett said.

"Because of his experience at the DPP, he had the knowledge and the background to look beyond what may be considered shock-jock opinion."

The former silk, who was elected in 2007, attracted criticism from some quarters for his opposition to mandatory eight-year prison sentences for people convicted of fatal assaults involving alcohol or drugs. The laws were passed in January this year to widespread condemnation from the legal profession.

In an opinion piece in the Herald last year, Mr Smith wrote that mandatory sentences were an "ineffective crime-fighting tool".

But he was forced to publicly defend the laws after they were passed, saying it would have taken "too long" to seek guidelines from judges on the appropriate sentence for so-called one-punch attacks.

"At the end of the day, he rolled over on mandatory sentencing," shadow attorney-general Paul Lynch said.

"If he still opposed mandatory sentencing and didn’t believe the arguments he advanced, he should have resigned from the portfolio then."

Mr Lynch said the former attorney-general had also overseen the introduction of "draconian penalties for graffiti offences and the reintroduction of the odious summary offence of drunk and disorderly".

Mr Smith spearheaded a review of the state's complex bail laws, which had been in place for over three decades and had been amended 80 times.

The Baird government has commissioned a review of the resultant laws, which took effect on May 20, amid claims by sections of the media they they were allowing accused murderers to "walk free".

Experts have criticised the "premature" review as pandering to law-and-order hardliners.

Mr Smith's successor, Brad Hazzard, initially defended the new bail regime. But in a sign he is under the same media pressures that dogged Mr Smith, he publicly supported the review announced by the Premier days later.

Mr Smith told ABC Radio on Wednesday he "would have delayed any review for several months" and some people had it as their "agenda to destroy those bail laws".

He said it was "not easy" to come from a profession that had "certain cultures and standards" and he had sought to end the law and order auction in NSW.

A number of names are being floated as potential successors to Mr Smith in Epping. Most prominent among them is his son, Nathaniel, a Kogarah councillor and senior government relations adviser with lobbying firm Hugo Halliday.

Former Young Liberals president and ex-staffer to Mr Smith, Noel McCoy, has also been mentioned, as have barrister Sophie York, Mr Smith's former chief of staff Damien Tudehope and former broadcaster Jason Morrison.

with Nicole Hasham