The adoption tax credit is a lovely thing. It offers a direct financial benefit to families who adopt. The benefit is better for families who adopt special needs children. There is much written about the policy and mechanics of the federal adoption tax credit. It is not a new thing. And note that, like most tax provisions, not everyone is eligible and not every expense is covered, and there is a limitation of $17,280. But in the past, families needed t owe tax to use the credit. Effective 2025, $5000 of the credit will be refundable even for families who don’t owe tax.

I am not a tax lawyer. My goal here is to alert you to the change only.  If you or your clients are in a position to use the federal adoption tax credit, you can get more information at the IRS website.

https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/individuals/adoption-credit

Dawn

In 2024, the form to amend a Tennessee birth certificate after adoption, a Certificate of Adoption, was revised to remove the previously required court certification. Tennessee Department of Vital Records requires instead, that a certified copy of the final order of adoption be submitted along with the Certificate of Adoption form. If you have an old certificate of adoption form in your forms set, note that the revised TN Certificate of Adoption Form is form number PH-1248 (rev. 10/24) and may be found with this link: https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/health/documents/vital-records/PH-1248-Certificate-of-Adoption.pdf 

Admittedly, I meant to blog on the new process back in 2024, but other things took precedence. I did include the change and revised form in all Good Law trainings since the form was revised. I hoped that you were not inconvenienced by the blog delay. I was finally prompted to sit down and write about the form change by a September 2025 change in the Georgia process to revise the birth certificates of Georgia-born children adopted in Tennessee.

As most of you know, for US children, birth certificates come from the place the child was originally born, and the state of birth must amend the birth certificate when the child is adopted elsewhere. Our sister state of Georgia has about 11.2 million residents, compared to Tennessee’s 7.2 million. Georgia has lots of kids, and Tennesseans often adopt them. Busy Tennessee adoption practitioners modify the birth certificates of children born in Georgia with some regularity.

For many years, Georgia requested that Tennessee adoption attorneys send Georgia whatever we would send to Tennessee for a post-adoption amendment. That was a kindness, particularly compared to the cumbersome requirements of some of our other sister states.

But when Tennessee changed its form in 2024 to remove the court’s certification and require a certified copy of the final order of adoption, Georgia continued to insist on the old Tennessee form and a court’s certification on that form. This caused confusion and delays for many Tennessee families. Gradually, some Tennessee clerks began to refuse to certify the old Tennessee form, insisting on the use of the revised Tennessee form that Georgia still refused to accept.

This is just the kind of administrative cul-de-sac that makes lawyers bang their heads, and an adoption wonk problem if there ever was one. But if your client can’t get their kindergartener enrolled, it is time to wonk out. Now I happily report that Tennessee adoptive families and their lawyers have been freed from the cul-de-sac. Georgia now accepts, in fact requires, Tennessee’s current certificate of adoption form along with a certified copy of the Tennessee final order of adoption. Once again, just send Georgia what you send to Tennessee.

Taking care of Tennessee’s children and families isn’t all bold closing arguments.

I appreciate all that you do,

Dawn

 Increased Care with Identity Documents Advised

And

A Suggested Approach for Unresponsive Government Agencies

 

Identity documents have become increasingly requested and regulated since 9/11. That trend has accelerated as immigration and gender identity have moved to the forefront of government policy, and government databases have become more integrated and less secure. Those of us working in adoption, parentage, family law, immigration, etc., are involved in the creation and modification of identity documents every day. In response to this new focus, lawyers must increase their attention to the prompt and precise creation or amendment of identity documents.

 

Identity documents begin with a birth certificate and a social security account, and often also include a driver’s license or Real ID, and a passport. Some people also have immigration documents or benefits cards and professional licenses. And we all appear in many other government databases related to things like payment of taxes, student loans, military service, veterans’ services, and registration for the draft, marriages, divorces, adoptions, property ownership, gun ownership, auto ownership, benefits applications, voting records, crimes, auto accidents, and child abuse.

 

I advise my clients (friends and family too) to confirm that they have a whole set of current identity documents for each member of their family, on paper and stored electronically, with security protections, of course. I also suggest that they give an extra set of these documents to a trusted person who does not live in their home.

 

People whose identity documents are destroyed in natural disasters, or whose documents are lost or stolen, find normal life disrupted to an unexpected extent. Replacing documents has become increasingly difficult, particularly without copies of the originals.

 

It is also important for lawyers and clients to be mindful of the consistency of identity information across the government’s electronic databases. As information is shared between agencies, like when a birth certificate is submitted for a passport, driver’s license, or to the social security office, discrepancies can cause problems that may be difficult to rectify, even with a lawyer. Correcting identity document errors reminds me of trying to correct an error on a credit report. There isn’t much of a path, and if the buck stops anywhere, in the faceless organization or bureaucracy, it is very hard to tell exactly where. There isn’t a law school course in navigating that sort of problem.

 

The first thing lawyers can do is prevent problems. Lawyers obtaining court orders to create or modify identity documents must ensure prompt, accurate issuance of new or amended documents and consider the consistency of information across a person’s document set and important agency databases. It is easiest to correct an error immediately after the error is made, and not several years later, when a child is about to be enrolled in kindergarten, or the client has an international trip scheduled, for example.

 

When helping someone with an identity document problem, I start with the website of the government agency primarily responsible for maintaining the information. Many problems can be addressed using information or processes available online. When an online process is available, that is nearly always the easiest approach. It is important to notice the panic in a client’s eyes when you say, “It is easy. Just go to the website.” Some of our less tech-savvy, often older, clients will need a lawyer or paralegal to complete an online process for them.

 

When there is no online process to address a client’s problem, we need to speak or correspond with a person. And I find reaching a responsive government representative is increasingly difficult at every agency I work with.

 

I used to write a paper letter when I couldn’t get a response by phone or email, but that is less effective than it once was. I still often try that first. But when normal channels haven’t worked, I call my representative’s office, state or federal, depending on the type of agency I’m trying to reach, and ask them if they would be willing to get me an answer or a call back. If the client lives in a different legislative district than I do, I generally begin with their representative’s office. There are good state and federal websites to identify a representative using the constituent’s address.

 

Legislative bodies nearly always have designated liaisons for each corresponding administrative agency to help the legislators and their staff assist constituents. And at the federal level, representatives usually have several staff members dedicated to “constituent services,” often each specializing in specific agencies. It isn’t usually necessary to speak directly with the representative for help with an ordinary request. The staff will usually end up with your request anyway, so it is best to explain it directly yourself. When my clients are working on their own and having difficulty getting through to an agency, I give them this same advice. It works equally well for constituents and lawyers calling for constituents. The service is there, and we have all paid for it. We might as well use it.

 

The next couple of blog posts will stay on the documents theme. Look for posts on recent changes to administrative processes for amending birth certificates.

 

Be well,

Dawn Coppock

On May 19, 2025, a class action on behalf of 13 Tennessee foster children was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee against the commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, alleging significant systemic failures, summarized in a preliminary statement, the first 3 paragraphs of the complaint included below.

Experienced Tennessee guardians ad litem appear on behalf of the children, and prestigious Tennessee and national law firms represent the plaintiffs. A National nonprofit children’s advocacy group, A Better Childhood, appears to be the primary organizer of the action. The class is not yet certified. To read the complaint and sign up for news on developments, see https://www.abetterchildhood.org/tennessee

PRELIMINARY STATEMENT

1. Tennessee’s foster care system is failing the children it is intended to protect.

Tennessee’s Department of Children’s Services (“DCS”) warehouses children in spaces which lack the basic necessities of life, including adequate food, bedding, soap, and potable water. Intended as temporary placements, DCS leaves children in these situations for months on end. Once placed in ‘long-term’ placements, children fare no better. DCS contracts with facilities which possess well-known track records of physical, mental, and sexual abuse. Children are placed in foster homes that have not been properly vetted, do not receive necessary information about the children, and do not receive the services necessary to care for them. Foster care is intended to be temporary, until children can either be reunited with their families or placed in another permanent home; however, children in Tennessee linger in foster care and are moved from place to place without the opportunity for a stable childhood.

2. The caseworkers required to support and protect foster children are overworked and undertrained. Due to crushing caseloads, DCS caseworkers are unable to reliably perform the basic duties necessary to oversee the well-being of the foster children assigned to their care. As concluded by a state audit in 2022, “[t]he safety, permanency, and well-being of Tennessee’s most vulnerable children is in jeopardy.”

3. DCS’s dereliction of care is no mere oversight or mistake. It has been previously sued in federal court for violating the rights of foster children. As a result of the suit, DCS improved many aspects of the foster care system, until the court ended its jurisdiction over DCS’s performance metrics in 2017. However, eight years later, the state of Tennessee’s child welfare system is just as bad, if not worse, than the crisis which engendered the previous lawsuit.

A Better Childhood’s advocacy goals for Tennessee from their website: www.Abetterchildhood.org

ADVOCACY GOALS

Keira M. v. Quin requests that the court prohibit DCS from subjecting the children in the general class and the ADA subclass to practices that violate their rights. The case seeks an order directing the state and DCFS to, among other things:

• Provide all children who enter foster care placement with an adequate and individualized written case plan within 60 days;
• Ensure all children who enter foster care placement receive necessary medical and therapy services;
• Ensure that children are only placed in homes that can meet their needs;
• Develop a process to properly match children with appropriate and safe foster homes, and prioritize keeping sibling groups together;
• Improve recruitment and retainment practices of appropriately trained caseworkers;
• Lower caseloads of individual workers to professional standards;
• Ensure that children with disabilities are provided with the services they need in their community.

Every Tennessee child welfare lawyer and juvenile judge I know who offers an opinion on the function of Tennessee’s child welfare system describes it as “worse than ever,” often using terms like “free fall,” “imploding,” and “systemic child abuse.” Caseworkers and DCS lawyers, too, often openly acknowledge the systemic chaos. Many foster parents are dismayed by the impact on the children they love.

In many forums, including an op ed posted on this blog and in Tennessee newspapers in January 2023, https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/contributors/2023/01/03/public-outcry-needed-to-fix-tennessee-department-of-children-services/69774889007/ , I’ve called for recognition of the severity of the problem and DCS’s adoption of proven management practices and standards used in states whose systems work better, but the steep decline has only continued. My legal career began in 1987, and the Tennessee Child Welfare has never been worse. While I regret that a lawsuit is necessary, it is. I wish the Plaintiffs every success.

I know I just said I wasn’t retiring, and that was true when I said it. Now it isn’t. I started declining new cases today. By April 7, 2025 I will be retired, except for a few outstanding cases and on-demand seminar production. I had expected to retire near my husband Kyle’s long-planned retirement date of April 1, 2026. Adoption Law School in the Mountains in April of 2026 was planned as my last big, live seminar. But that seminar isn’t going to happen.

 

Don’t worry. My long-time paralegal, Angi Newsome, and I and our families are fine. The quick pivot occurred due to something good, not something bad. We had just begun half-heartedly watching for the right job for Angi after I retired. But Angi is a great hire. So, after just a few preliminary inquiries, her perfect job popped right up, and it couldn’t wait. Angi is excited to begin a new job for the Jefferson County government on April 7, 2025 and I’m excited for her.

 

After 30+ years together, it is hard to picture anyone filling Angi’s shoes, and I don’t really want to work with anyone else or train someone new. So, I am retiring now. We are spending March winding things down and preparing for the last Adoption Law School in the Mountains 2025, April 2-4, 2025. 

 

If you are an existing client, you will hear from us soon. I’m personally finishing most of the cases I have right now. If your case isn’t amenable to quick resolution, I’ll make sure you land well. I’ve been writing and training for years in the hope of leaving many qualified successors. Lawyers, if you want to step into this meaningful work, now is a good time. If you need a review or to tune up your skills, I have exactly one more big, live training.  For info on Adoption Law School live in April, my on-demand video courses, or to buy my law book, see www.GoodLawTN.com. The on-demand courses should be available on that site into 2027 and the book even longer. 

 

Beyond maintaining Good Law for book sales and on-demand seminars, I haven’t considered professional diversions in my retirement yet. I may reserve time to consult with other attorneys on tough cases or find a way to reengage with foster parents.  I likely have a dance or two left. 

 

I’ll consider all that after the last big seminar and when cases are buttoned up. I apologize for not making personal calls to tell you and not being around to chat about it. I’m swamped. I hope to have plenty of time to chat and reconnect with my treasured professional friends and former clients this summer. While it is a quick decision, it feels like the right choice. I’ve had a pretty good run. By May, I expect to enjoy our mountain spring with time to smell the flowers. 

 

Dawn