Adams’ paternal grandfather, the Rev. Theodore F. Adams, relocated his family to the Richmond area from Toledo, Ohio, in the 1930s to become the pastor at First Baptist Church. The minister became so well-loved that he was featured on the cover of Time magazine.

Adams, the youngest of four boys, grew up in Midlothian and graduated from Midlothian High School. Virginia Military Institute was the only college he applied to. While there, he became executive officer of the VMI Corps of Cadets.

He lived in Pearl Harbor and Virginia Beach while serving five years in the Navy, then went to law school at the University of Virginia. He clerked for Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, who recommended he clerk for a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Adams clerked in 2006 and 2007 for Justice Clarence Thomas, whose son had attended VMI with Adams. From there, he worked as an associate counsel in the White House of President George W. Bush in 2007 and 2008 before moving back to Richmond near the end of the Bush administration to become an assistant U.S. attorney.

Adams said he does not come from an overtly political family but was naturally a Republican. He knows of no one in his family who’s ever run for office before.