Joi Thomas Adams, Executive Director

Inspired by her passion for bringing compelling stories to life, Joi Thomas Adams uses her skills as a lawyer to draft and negotiate a variety of television and film programming deals. Her colleagues and clients value her adept ability to anticipate business changes, offer innovative solutions and share legal guidance on risk allocation, regulatory compliance and strategic planning. And it’s that breadth of experience that she brings to her non-profit work.

Joi’s involvement in the non-profit world began years ago – first as a board member and then as the decade-long president of Chicago’s Minority Legal Education Resources (MLER). Joi’s visionary leadership was punctuated with masterful fundraising and consensus-building. With those tools, she revitalized the existing programming and redeveloped its resources devised to assist law students from underserved communities in passing the Bar exam.

In her personal life, Joi met and later married Jarrett Adams – a man wrongfully convicted at age 17, exonerated a decade later and today a lawyer – who co-founded Life After Justice (LAJ). Her marriage brought her to a new purpose and the culmination of her experiences made her an invaluable member of LAJ.

With Joi at the helm of Life After Justice, she helps bring to life Jarrett’s pledge that no other wrongfully convicted individual goes through what he did to regain his freedom. By building on his story, Joi and the Life After Justice board and team are creating a new ecosystem of support for the wrongfully convicted community.