Professor Nicola Smit obtained the BLC (cum laude) and LLB (cum laude) degrees in 1993 and 1995 from the University of Pretoria. She graduated with an LLD from the University of Johannesburg (UJ)(RAU as it then was) in 2002.

Since 1 June 2025, she has taken on the role of Acting Chief Operating Officer of Stellenbosch University (SU). Previously, she was the Dean of the Faculty of Law at SU from August 2017. Before her appointments at Stellenbosch, she was the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Law at the North-West University (Potchefstroom campus) (January 2013 to July 2017) and the Vice Dean Faculty of Law of the University of Johannesburg (2010-2012). She was also the Co-Director of the Centre for International Comparative Labour Law and Social Security Law, UJ (2009-2011). She was the first woman to occupy several of these positions.

Her areas of specialisation include labour law (both collective and individual) and social security law. Despite being in leadership roles the last 15 years, Prof Smit is a recognised researcher, supervisor (several of her students are now professors at other universities) and lecturer. She is a member of the International Advisory Board of The International Journal of Labour Law and Industrial Relations (Kluwer Law International), the editorial board of the International Labor Rights Case Law Journal (Brill Martinus Nijhoff), Annual Survey of South-African Law (Juta), and the Industrial Law Journal (Juta).  She is the co-editor of various books, including Law@work (6th edition), Social Security: A Legal Analysis, Introduction to Social Security, and Liber Amicorum: Manfred Weiss. She has also co-published several other books, including Age Discrimination and Labour Law and The Law of Commerce and authored and co-authored 48 accredited academic articles together with numerous technical reports.