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Frank Goldsmith was born in Asheville and grew up in Marion, North Carolina. He graduated from Davidson College in 1967, studied international law and French constitutional law at the Université de Montpellier, France, and received his juris doctor degree with honors in 1970 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif (a legal academic honorary society), served as Associate Editor of the North Carolina Law Review, and received the Van Hecke-Wettach Citizenship Award and the Student Bar Association Certificate of Service. Mr. Goldsmith received a commission as an Infantry lieutenant in 1967 and served on active duty as a captain in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps from 1970 to 1972. Following his honorable discharge from the Army, he practiced law with a firm in Durham, North Carolina, then returned to his home town of Marion, where he has practiced ever since. Mr. Goldsmith and his brother and law partner, Jim Goldsmith, formed their own firm, Goldsmith & Goldsmith, in 1979. In 1990, the brothers were joined by Julie Dews, and 1996, the firm changed its name to Goldsmith, Goldsmith & Dews, P.A. Mr. Goldsmith’s practice is focused on litigation in a variety of areas, as well as mediation. Much of his litigation practice involves employment law, personal injury litigation, commercial, real estate and construction litigation, and constitutional and civil rights law. Since 1996 he has been certified as a mediator by the North Carolina Dispute Resolution Commission, and he regularly mediates cases pending in various state and federal courts, as well as serving as an arbitrator. Mr. Goldsmith also finds time for pro bono work, including representing inmates on North Carolina’s Death Row. For well over thirty-five years now, he has litigated cases at all levels of the state and federal court system, including the United States Supreme Court, where he argued and won a case for a prisoner as court-assigned counsel in 1977. In addition to his law practice, Mr. Goldsmith has served as a Senior Lecturing Fellow at Duke University Law School, teaching trial advocacy as an adjunct professor. He has served as a faculty member at various institutes and programs, both in North Carolina and other states, sponsored by the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA), the North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers, and other organizations. He is a graduate of NITA’s Advanced Course and its Harvard Teacher Training Program. Mr. Goldsmith has also lectured in a number of continuing legal education programs for lawyers in the fields of civil rights, general civil litigation, criminal defense, and habeas corpus litigation. In 1994, Mr. Goldsmith was inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers at its meeting in Ottawa, Canada. He has also served on the Boards of Governors of both the North Carolina Bar Association and the North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers, has served as Chair of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the N.C. Bar Association, and more recently was Chair of the Employment Law Section of the N.C. Academy of Trial Lawyers, as well as serving on various committees and task forces. He currently chairs the Ethics Committee of the N.C. Academy of Trial Lawyers and is serving a second term on that organization’s Board of Governors, and is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the North Carolina Law Alumni Association. He has served as president of the Twenty-Ninth Judicial District and the McDowell County Bar Associations and on the boards of Catawba Valley Legal Services, North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services, and the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina (which he served both as president and later as chair of its Legal Committee). In 1987, the ACLU-NC honored Mr. Goldsmith with its Frank Porter Graham Award. Mr. Goldsmith was one of five North Carolina attorneys profiled in a 1999 series of articles in The North Carolina State Bar Journal entitled “Searching for Atticus Finch.” Mr. Goldsmith’s outside interests include hiking
(he is a section maintainer for the Appalachian Trail), canoeing,
sailing, travel, and the study of languages. He is also active in
various civic and religious organizations and has served as president
of his congregation. |
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