Back to school: Indiana Supreme Court Justice Goff earns LLM from Duke University

It’s not every day that a state supreme court justice returns to the classroom as a student.

But Indiana Supreme Court Justice Christopher Goff did and recently earned his master of judicial studies degree, also known as an LLM, at Duke University.

“I just knew that that was really impactful to previous members of the court, and I thought it would be an opportunity for me to go and bring some good things back to Indiana,” Goff said.

Goff’s wife Raquel said she was thrilled he took on this challenge.

“When I first learned of this possible opportunity for Chris, I absolutely thought he should do it. We both knew it would require quite a bit of work and time away from home,” Raquel said. “But I knew he would succeed. He is a life-long learner, and this was right up his alley. I enjoyed seeing his renewed passion for the law and it reminded me of when he was in law school.”

The couple drove down to Duke University in North Carolina for Goff’s graduation ceremony with 20 other judicial officers.

“For the graduation ceremony, not only did I finally meet his impressive classmates in person, but it was also a special moment for our family,” Raquel said. “Our kids and grandkids in Indiana watched pop-pops on the live web stream. I’m both proud and grateful.”

The program at Duke is built for judges and they are required to spend a month in North Carolina on campus for a month each summer.

“You’re really taking a look at the judiciary and the judicial branch of government from the perspective of judges,” Goff said “It’s very interactive with the faculty, but you’re getting sort of a more holistic view of what you do, and sort of a greater appreciation of how the judicial branch interacts with the other branches of government and support the larger society.”

Goff said the last two years have been filled with a lot of readings for the program and he was grateful to Chief Justice Loretta Rush for working around the program’s calendar and being supportive.

“I really appreciated the opportunity to sort of step outside for a minute and see some sort of big picture, what’s going on in the world, what’s going on in our country, and figure out what I can do, from my perspective, to make things better for people,” Goff said. “The judicial service has been wonderful for me, because it allowed me, I hope, in some small way to help the community I serve as a trial judge navigate some challenging times and come out stronger.”

Rush said she was grateful for Goff taking the time and energy to pursue his LLM.

“By doing so, he follows in the footsteps of esteemed former Justices of our Court—Randall Shepard, Frank Sullivan, Jr., and Robert Rucker—who each pursued and earned an LLM as part of their ongoing commitment to learning,” Rush said. “I commend my colleague for his devotion to the law and look forward to reading his thesis when it is published.”

Looking to align systems

The conclusion to the two-year program is a thesis paper.

Goff chose to focus his on the justice system and the behavioral health systems, particularly as they relate to substance abuse and mental health.

The abstract of his thesis paper focuses on institutionalizing the alignment of the two systems.

“Therefore, once the difficult work of system alignment has been accomplished, that alignment should be institutionalized, both as a means of recognizing emerging problems before they become a crisis, and of providing a means of continuous system improvement,” says a draft of Goff’s abstract.

He recalled when he was on the Wabash Superior Court bench the process he and other judges went through to respond to the opioid crisis. Goff said a big thing they did was create a drug court.

“In order to make that happen, we had to align our local court system with our local behavioral health delivery system so that we could be responsive to the needs of the folks that were really struggling,” Goff said. “And it was an effort.”

A few years later when Goff rose to the high court in 2017 and familiarized himself with the National Judicial Opioid Task Force, he noticed he was having the same conversations at the local level and the state level and the federal level.

And then he had the opportunity to serve on the national task force to examine state court response to mental illness.

“I realized this is the same process that we went through with opioids,” Goff said. “We shouldn’t reinvent the wheel.”

With the opioid crisis over a decade ago, Indiana adopted criminal justice reforms that allowed non-violent felons with substance use disorders move out of prisons and into rehabilitation facilities and other local placements.

“That was really a challenge for local systems, because they were never resourced up to deal with that effectively,” Goff said. “Part of what we did over the last couple years, when we were trying to transform the way we deal with behavioral health issues, more generally, was we were trying to resource up our communities and our network of community mental health care providers to be more responsive to those needs.”

He said it is a good thing that people have been deinstitutionalized but that approach must also assure that communities are equipped to handle the challenges that presents.

“It takes a lot of work to bring everybody necessary to the table, because when you have deinstitutionalization, you have a bunch of different community stakeholders that are sharing the responsibility that a single standalone state institution used to do,” Goff said. “If they’re going to do that correctly, they need to have sort of a permanent convening so that they can actually identify problems before they become a crisis.”

Goff added that with the lawyer shortage the issue will become exacerbated, especially in the rural counties.

“What I think is really important is for our communities, lawyers in particular, to understand there are these structures in place wherever you practice that can allow you to be more effective in your job and to leverage state resources in a way that will deliver what your clients most need,” Goff said.

His thesis paper isn’t ready to be published yet, but once it is polished, he looks forward to getting it out for people to read.

“My goal all along has been to bring some of this back to Indiana to make it better,” Goff said.

Hoosier program

Former Indiana Supreme Court Justice Randall Shepard earned his LLM from the University of Virginia.

“I think having a member of the Supreme Court like Justice Goff make the effort to partake in a program of this magnitude is a great example for all of us in the judiciary,” Shepard said.

After Shepard received his LLM, he felt like Indiana needed a similar educational program for judicial officers.

The Graduate Program with the Office of Court Services is a week-long program offered in June for two consecutive years and is designed to immerse judicial officers in an intensive in-depth learning experience on selected topics.

“It’s really designed to look a lot like regular education, so I think that has been a very positive thing for the Indiana court system,” Shepard said.

Goff was a 2016 graduate of the program when he was on the Wabash Superior Court bench.

“I think it made me a better judge,” Goff said. “It allowed me to come back and serve my community better.”•