Dawn’s Blog

Last Dawn Coppock Adoption / Legislative Advocacy Series This Year!

Seminars, Attorneys & Courts

3 Adoption Shorts & Legislative Advocacy & Ethics
With Dawn Coppock

  • Knoxville
    Thursday, November 29, 2018
    4 Market Square – 3rd Floor conference room above Café 4.
  • Nashville
    Friday, December 7, 2018
    Nelson Andrews Leadership Center / 3088 Smith Springs Rd


Step Parent & Relative Adoption for Newbs

Basic stepparent and relative adoptions are the daily fare for many general practitioners. But the process is technical. This class offers the basic skills and information you need to competently represent relatives and step-parents, including forms, checklists and when to call for help if a case takes an ugly turn.

  • 1.5 hours CLE credit (1 hour general / .5 dual general/ethics)
  • Knoxville Registration:  10:00 – 10:30 / Seminar 10:30 – 12:00
  • Nashville Registration: 8:00 – 8:30 / Seminar 8:30 – 10:00
  • Cost:  $150
  • Materials- Stepparent checklist and basic forms.


Adoption Law Update – Part I:  Hidey-holes and Whack-a-mole – When can you ignore an unwed father?

The long-standing advice to possible fathers is, if you don’t want your child right now, lay low and keep your options open; they might not come for your paycheck. If a caretaker decides to adopt it will be their job to find you and to terminate parental your parental rights in a slow and expensive game of Wack-a-Mole: Daddy Edition. But over the years Tennessee law has gradually required less and less searching for fathers down in hidey-holes. Effective July 1, 2018, the game is up. Unwed fathers can still hide, but if they fail to claim their children prospective adoptive parents may not have to look for them. Whether you are advising fathers, mothers or adoptive parents, you need to know the new rules of the game.

  • 1 hour general CLE credit
  • Knoxville Registration 1:00 – 1:30 / Seminar 1:30 – 2:30
  • Nashville Registration: 10:00 – 10:15 / Seminar 10:15 – 11:15
  • Cost:  $100
  • Materials- Handouts


Adoption Law Update – Part II:  Grounds and Procedure

First in Adoption, a comprehensive adoption reform legislative package, was effective July 1, 2018. Almost every termination and adoption case is affected by this new law. Practitioners who want, not just a list of changes, but to understand how those changes impact your cases and the advice that you give, this seminar is for you.

  • 1.5 hours CLE (1 hour general / .5 dual general/ethics)
  • Knoxville Registration:  2:30 – 3:00 / Seminar:  3:00 – 4:30
  • Nashville Registration: 12:45 – 1:00 / Seminar 1:00 – 2:30
  • Cost:  $150
  • Materials- Handouts


Using Your Powers for Good.  Legislative Action for Lawyers.


Dawn Coppock will present tools for effective legislative advocacy. Examples will draw from her environmental and adoption legislative advocacy, but the process and techniques apply to all state level advocacy.  With just a bit of information, lawyers are uniquely insightful, skilled and effective citizens/lobbyists.

  • 1 hour dual (general / ethics) CLE credit
  • Knoxville Registration 4:30 – 5:00 / Seminar 5:00 – 6:00
  • Nashville Registration 2:30 – 2:45 / Seminar 2:45 – 3:45
  • Cost: $65.00
  • Materials Tennessee Blue Books provided
  • Tenn. Sup. Ct. Rule 8 [7] As a public citizen, a lawyer should seek improvement of the law, access to the legal system, the administration of justice, and the quality of service rendered by the legal profession. As a member of a learned profession, a lawyer should cultivate knowledge of the law beyond its use for clients, employ that knowledge in reform of the law, and work to strengthen legal education. In addition, a lawyer should further the public’s understanding of and confidence in the rule of law and the justice system because legal institutions in a constitutional democracy depend on popular participation and support to maintain their authority.

Register for individual seminars or register for all four for $390.00.

Book/Supplement Purchase Information
 
Available for purchase at the seminars or through the publisher,
Celtic Cat Publishing.
  • Coppock on Tennessee Adoption Law, 7th Ed., with the 2018 Supplement $170.00
           OR
  • 2018 Supplement only $47.00
 
Not required materials for the seminar.

About Dawn Coppock

Tennessee Adoption Attorney and Author

For over 30 years, Dawn has been an adoption and child-welfare advocate nationally and in Tennessee. She knows where the system is working and the many places that it is not. When she provides her frank assessment to policy makers, they listen. She has drafted and passed many child-welfare bills in the Tennessee Legislature, founded, encouraged and supported advocacy organizations, educated lawyers and judges on good practice, and pointed out places that we can do better for our children, openly and behind the scenes at every opportunity.

Dawn Coppock, Adoption Attorney

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