Service Spotlight: Adam Goff
May 17, 2023 | 10:05 AM
Adam D. Goff is currently a member of the Salt Lake chapter. As a student at S.J. Quinney College of Law, he was the communications officer for the law school chapter. In law school, he got a start in pro bono work as a fellow in the Law School’s pro bono initiative. After graduating with honors in 2022, Adam joined the Salt Lake firm of Plant, Christensen, & Kannell where he practices litigation and appeals on a variety of matters. He also continues to provide pro bono service, most recently as a volunteer with the No More A Stranger Foundation, a nonprofit partner of the JRCLS, which provides free legal representation to clients in immigration matters.
Adam has truly loved the time he has spent volunteering at the NOMAS legal clinic. Even though his primary practice area is not immigration law, he has come to realize just how necessary the everyday skills he’s developed in his legal practice are in helping pro bono clients navigate paperwork that seems overwhelming to them. Working on pro bono cases reminds him that skills many lawyers may consider basic and everyday parts of their profession can be used to help people in desperate need. He says, “something as simple as drafting a declaration for a judge may seem incredibly daunting to someone facing the complex immigration process.”
Describing his experience as a volunteer, Adam recounted one occasion when he helped someone in that very situation. After interviewing a young man who had fled to the US to escape threats from a powerful criminal organization in his home country, Adam worked with him to draft a declaration that succinctly, but powerfully told his story in a way that a judge would really understand the danger this man faces.
This experience, he says, “reminded me of my moral obligation to spend at least a fraction of my time to do pro bono work for a worthy cause.”