Adoption Lawyers

About two-thirds of all domestic infant adoptions are handled independently, meaning they're facilitated by an attorney without an agency as the middleman. These adoptions tend to be the most expensive, with the attorney fees ranging from $8,000 to $15,000, but they also have the fastest placement times. Most attorneys will solely handle healthy infant adoptions, making them even more favorable alternatives to other adoptions.

When choosing an attorney to handle your independent adoption, it's vital to choose one that has extensive experience handling adoption prior to you. This means working by referral not general search engine results or Yellow Page directories. Adoption lawyers can make or break an independent adoption as they're the sole facilitator between an adoptive couple and future birth mother.

You can find a good adoption lawyer by asking physicians, friends, fellow adoptive parents and local judges. Adopters can also look through a list of lawyers from the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys (adoptionattorneys.org). After getting the names of a few promising adoption lawyers, head to the Better Business Bureau and see how they stack up against each other. Any lawyer with complaints against him or her is probably not going to be worth the risk of ruining the adoption process. Also, don't be afraid to call the attorney and ask him or her questions about his or her experience as an adoption lawyer.