Divorced

How To Choose An Adoption Attorney

No matter where you are in the adoption process, whether you have just started your Home Study or have already connected with a Birthparent, choosing an attorney to help you through the process is one of the most important choices you will have to make. I have worked in adoptions for over nine years and I want to stress to you that choosing an attorney that specializes in adoptions or has significant adoption experience is highly important. Although as an agency we do a lot of the legal work ourselves with our own attorney, we also conduct Home Studies for couples who are doing independent adoptions, meaning they are going through an attorney rather than an agency. Most of the mix-ups and botched adoptions we see are typically associated with attorneys that do not practice adoption law or who know very little about adoption law.

When choosing an attorney to use in an independent adoption, I always recommend choosing one that is a member of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys (also known as AAAA or Quad A Attorneys). Adoption law is typically state specific except for a few federal laws, so you want an adoption attorney that is well versed in the adoption laws of your state. Things get even more complicated if Birthparents live in one state and the adoptive family lives in another. This is called an interstate adoption. Not only are you dealing with the laws in each state, but you are also dealing with the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children, a Federal law that regulates children being placed for adoption in a different state than where they were born. The adoption disruptions that we see played out in the media typically happen because something was not done legally the way it was supposed to be done. For this reason it is imperative that you use an attorney that knows the adoption laws for your state.

I teach monthly adoption seminars, which include a section on adoption law. During this session I always share the example of how both the lawyer and judge in a rural county in my state did not do things correctly, which ended in an adoption disruption. In this case the adoption was finalized in Juvenile Court, which cannot happen in my state as adoptions are finalized in Chancery or Fourth Circuit Court. But, even worse, the Birthmother never signed a Surrender to surrender her parental rights. You cannot finalize an adoption if one or both of the Birthparents still have parental rights to the child. Since her parental rights were still in place, when she went to the court five years later the adoption was overturned and her daughter was returned to her.

The purpose of sharing this story is not to scare prospective adoptive parents. I share it to educate them and to reinforce the importance of using an attorney who just practices adoption law or one who has done adoptions in their practice for at least five years. By doing adoptions for five years I don't mean two or three adoptions over the past five years. I mean someone who does them on a regular basis. Even if you know a lawyer who is a good friend or one who is doing the adoption just to help you, if they do not know adoption law they could end up hurting the adoption in the end.

Even if there is not a AAAA Attorney in your area, you should contact the AAAA Attorney that practices closest to you. They might travel to you or they could recommend someone in your area that knows adoption law. For instance, the AAAA Attorney that my agency uses along with most other agencies and adoptive families in the area has a list of attorneys that she contacts for adoptions in counties that are about two hours or more from her. If she is not busy, she will travel, but because she has such a good reputation she usually stays busy and she often refers families who live further away to other attorneys. She also will tell you which attorney to not use if she knows an attorney who has repeatedly done adoptions not according to the law, which is important information for adoptive families to have.

If you are beginning to search for an attorney to help with your adoption, the first thing you should do is to see if there is a AAAA Attorney in your area. You should always check their credentials and talk to families who have used them. It is also good to talk with other adoptive parents to see which attorneys they used and to find out if they had positive or negative experiences. The way an attorney handles or mishandles an adoption can literally make or break it. This is not a chance that you want to take when it comes to your family. You need to choose an attorney that will follow adoption law correctly and one that will make sure that the needs of everyone involved in the adoption process are met.

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if a man has been burned in a divorce, is he less interested in finding another wife?
I just read a posting when another person said that they "have a friend, divorced in his 40's. He is still interested in women and sex. But he doesn't seem too interested in re-marrying. It seems if a man has been burned in a divorce, he is less interested in another wife. Of course, if a guy finds a great woman, he might change his mind." I was just wondering; is this a common thread amongst older divorced men these days? And if so, then why? Men over 40 are still interested in sex (quality over quantity)...though they are probably less obsessed about it than guys in their 20s'.

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How do I make life better?
Well, if you're sitting down, grab some popcorn, because I'm dropping my life story on y'all. It started this year, school year, that is. My problem, essentially, is a mixture of terrible feelings constantly. They include, but are not limited to: Guilt, anxiety, depression, hopelessness, lovesick-ness, and a sort of feeling like I've been left behind and am unwanted. Loneliness, I guess. I go to public school, and I'm in ninth grade. I am very smart, and get good grades. My feelings started this year, when (I'm guessing) my hormones climbed to a high level. I get the feeling that nobody cares about me at all. I can usually go through a school day saying less than 50 words. I would consider myself funny, and not too ugly, but nobody adores me. That sounds weird, but I've found out that everyone has someone that they adore. I have several. Nobody looks forward to seeing me in the morning, or talking to me. I feel that with anything I do, I could be replaced. I wish I could take the idea of suicide seriously, but it boils down to me not having the guts to do such a thing. I just wish I would grow up already and move away from all of these people who don't spare me a second glance. The only thing that really brings me joy any more is guitar practice. I am quite skilled, having studied musical theory for the last three years. I am better than anybody I know of, and I hope to become a musician some day. This brings me a little bit of hope. I guess what I mean to ask, is: What can I do to improve my life? Do I just tough it out, being unspoken to and ignored by the girls and people that I love? Do I suffer a personality switch and become a spontaneous, fun-loving person? I wish that I could just take something to dumb myself down. They say that ignorance is bliss. I would like to ask my mom (divorced, live with mom) to help get me a prescription of anti-depressants, but she is, for lack of a better word, a bitch. She thinks that I'm "emo" and act sad just to spite her, somehow. She wouldn't help, and would probably just tell everyone that I want drugs or some other fodder she'd make up to get attention. It makes me really sad to see girls that I love and devote time to, get dated by guys simply for looks. It seems that is what everyone is doing nowadays. Dating. I don't think they'd ever date me anyway, but it is nice to fantasize sometimes. Whenever I hear about them dating, my heart drops a little bit further into the void in which it has sunken. It seems an incredibly lame thing to be depressed over, but whatever. I come as I am. I am jealous of people who get to hang out with, hold, and kiss the people that I've known for a long time. The smart, funny, pretty, talented people of my world. Attention. I just need attention. I sound like a crazy, self-centered, d-bag when I say that, but it is true. I just wish somebody would pay attention to me. I am naturally a quiet, and weird guy, who sits in the back of the class and diligently does homework or writes music. This makes me come off as some weirdo, and nobody talks to me much. Don't get me wrong, I have a few friends. They are so caught up in each other and their own lives, however, that they don't pay much attention to me anyway. I just kind of... observe everything. When I sit at the lunch table, I just listen. When I text anyone, I just listen. Observing and listening. Maybe I should be a therapist? That'd be a hoot. Anyway, crazy rant over. It felt kind of good to get that out there. Please comment, with suggestions to my situation (If you made it that far, this was kind of a boring thing to read, I suppose). Thanks, -Max Jalen- Thank you for responding. I think I am going to put myself out there a little bit more, indeed. Most of the other 'aspiring' musicians around here just make me mad, because they don't care about the music and just do it for attention. No one is really grand anyway. I am in a band, though. We will hopefully record a demo tape this summer. :)

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What to do with my father being accused of stealing?
My father moved in with me from a different city because he couldn't keep up the rent payment at his old place. So he decided to leave his high value collectibles with his brother-in-law and pawn his 6,000 dollar gold jewelers for 1,500 to survive. Couple of weeks later we been getting phone calls from family members that my father had stolen 30,000 dollar in gold and silver coins out of his brother-in-law safe box. Then he change the story saying 60,000 dollar. My father and I are upset over this because my father is going through a divorce and now we have to deal with this accusation of something my father didn't do! Now my father can't get his stuff back because of this accusation and I think his brother-in-law is making up these lies to keep his stuff! What should we do? P.S. My father had a bad history in grand theft when he was a teenager so I think the system will be against him.

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