JASON F. BARNES is in private practice with The Law Offices of Jason F. Barnes, P.C. (d.b.a. The Adoption Law Firm) and is a Utah Court Rostered Master Mediator.  His practice is highly focused in adoption and family law. Mr. Barnes previously served as the president of the Utah Adoption Council. He has worked on many legislative proposals and bills and has testified before the Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement, and Criminal Justice Committee on several occasions regarding proposed legislation affecting adoption laws.  Mr. Barnes has represented clients in all types of adoption matters and cases, including litigation in contested adoption matters. Mr. Barnes regularly advises attorneys and adoptive parents, and sometimes birth parents, regarding their rights, and the practice of adoption and procedure. Mr. Barnes has been an attorney since 2002, and prior to that started working as a paralegal to his father, Lyle J. Barnes, in 1991.  He earned his B.S. degree from the University of Utah and his J.D. degree from the University of Wyoming College of Law.  Away from the practice of law, his interests include his family, hockey, music, and movies.  His optimistic outlook is regularly disrupted by his dearly loved Boston Bruins.  He is the father of four children, all of whom are girls, yet none were adopted (he doubts that a home study would find him to be a suitable parent; but he is an adoptive grandfather, luckily no studies were needed for that).  Through the efforts of his long-suffering wife (of 32 years), all children appear to be on suitable life courses, with three of them married and one 9-year-old who keeps him young at heart.  Last, but not least, he has several grandchildren (currently, all boys except one girl).