Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch

I wanted to work in the field of social justice when I started law school at the University of Texas. I knew I would be able to help in the Immigration Clinic because I speak Spanish, so I decided to enroll. As a student at the Clinic, my first assignment was to visit the Hutto immigrant detention center. There, I met with a detained family of asylum seekers who had a five-month-old baby girl. She was wearing a onesie issued by the prison.

Her mom asked me if I would hold her during our meeting because I smelled like the outside world, and when I got up to leave our meeting, she asked me if I could sneak her baby out with me and take care of her until her parents could get out. Although I couldn’t do that, I did represent the family in their successful asylum case.

The elation I felt at helping obtain that family’s release and securing their future coupled with the horror I felt at seeing children in jail made my choice easy: I will spend my career fighting for justice and dignity for immigrants.

MY EXPERIENCE

I am the managing partner of Lincoln-Goldfinch Law. Upon graduating from the University of Texas for college and law school, I received an Equal Justice Works Fellowship in 2008, completed at American Gateways. My project served the detained families seeking asylum. After my fellowship, I entered private immigration practice. My firm offers family-based immigration, such as greencards and naturalization, deportation defense, and humanitarian cases such as asylum, U Visa, and VAWA. Everyone at Lincoln-Goldfinch Law is bilingual, has a connection to our cause, and has demonstrated a history of activism for immigrants. To us, our work is not just a job. After the pandemic we began offering bankruptcy services in addition to immigration I realized how much lack of information there is in financial literacy resources in Spanish.

SERVICE WORK

I serve as Mayor Adler’s Commissioner on Immigrant Affairs for the City of Austin. I am the pro bono liaison for the American Immigration Lawyers Association Texas Chapter and serve as Chair of the Board of Directors of VECINA, an immigration mentoring organization. I regularly mentor and train attorneys in an effort to encourage pro bono work by all lawyers. I was active in working to reunite separated families during the Zero Tolerance policy implemented by the Trump Administration during the summer of 2018 and work to reunite unaccompanied migrant children with their relatives as part of my work with Vecina.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

2023 Travis County Women Lawyers Pathfinder’s Award
2022 Austin Monthly Top Immigration lawyer
2022 Super Lawyer
2020 BBB Torch Award For Marketplace Ethics
2020 David H. Walter Community Excellence Award, Austin Bar Association
2019 & 2020 Best of Austin Immigration Attorney: Austin Monthly Magazine
2019, 2020 & 2021 SuperLawyer, Thompson Reuter’s Super Lawyer Magazine
2019 Kick Ass Award, Capitol Area Progressive Democrats
2019 Finalist in the legal category, Austin Under 40 Awards
2019 Changemaker Award, Austin Young Chamber
2018 Leadership in Advocacy Award, Grassroots Leadership
2018 Excellence in Pro Bono award, Austin Bar Association
2018 Clients’ Choice Award, Avvo
2017 & 2018 Rising Star, Thompson Reuter’s Super Lawyer Magazine
2017 Pro Bono Attorney of the Year, Travis County Women Lawyers Association
2010 Contribution to Minority Community Award, Travis County Women Lawyers Association

I have appeared on news outlets such as NBC, BBC, MSNBC, The New York Times, Fox News, and National Public Radio as an immigration expert. I regularly speak at legal education seminars for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the State Bar of Texas, and the Austin Bar Association, as well as to community groups such as churches and schools.

My most important accomplishment of all is my family: my daughters Nora and Winslow, and my husband Josh.