Adopting a Child Informally

You want to adopt a child in the home informally or with little or no paperwork.

For some families, children just appear; maybe you are the sitter for a child whose parents never returned, maybe you are that parent on the street where all the kids hang out and one took up residence, maybe your teen brought home a friend from school who needed refuge. 

These stories sound incredible until they are your story. Sometimes these cases are contested and nasty, and sometimes the birth parents are sadly quiet. The rules that apply to other cases regarding home studies, termination of parental rights, etc. all apply here.

Many such families have another pressing problem. They often don’t have a court order or power of attorney to get the child medical care and enrolled in school, and a birth parent may show up and take the child at any time. This is not a stable status for a child. 

You don’t just need an adoption lawyer, you need a lawyer to help you get a basic custody order or power of attorney. Dawn can help you with the short term problem while you sort out the longer term goals. Call for an appointment.

Happy african boy enjoying a piggyback ride on his mother's back.

Adult Adoptions

You want to adopt an adult.

While there are many reasons why people adopt adults, most often these are step parent adoptions where the child is all grown up. Some families will wait until a child is 18 to adopt because the child is securely with them and they don’t want to pay the legal fees for a hotly contested termination of the birth parent’s rights. It works. When adopting an adult, you must tell, but need not ask, the birth parent(s) about the adoption. The legal fees for these cases are usually pretty affordable and the process is pretty simple. 

Call the office for more information or to begin.

Dawn is Ready to Help Post Adoption Legal Problems

You have already adopted and have a “post adoption” legal problem.

Occasionally an adoptive parent will have a post-adoption legal problem.

A common issue is a birth parent contacting the child over social media, but there are also fee disputes with agencies, efforts to obtain a child’s pre-adoption medical records, renegotiation of adoption assistance, or an action to enforce a post adoption contact agreement. If it relates to adoption, Dawn can either help or refer you to someone who can. Call for an appointment.