Adoption Law Firms

• Good law firms provide for safe and solid legal work, making the adoption more secure. 

• The advertising mediums available to individual families are much less effective than those available to adoption agencies. (Keep in mind the largest national agencies who buy advertisements at a discount, track carefully their marketing success, have qualified counselors talking to birth mothers, and have major networking contacts still average spending $8,000 to $10,000 in advertising for each successful adoption. Therefore you should expect to pay more in advertising through a law firm especially if the ad is placed on your own)
• Placing ads individually puts more money at risk if a birth mother is not located.
• Families should expect their advertisments to be far less effective and many prospective adoptive families complain their ads did not yield any inquiries.
• Law firms often bill hourly, meaning their fees are at-risk if the adoption doesn’t work out.
• Most law firm’s cost estimates are the best-case scenario and rarely reflects that their clients often experience several disruptions and therefore can lose thousands of dollars before an adoption succeeds, meaning those losses will be added to the fees for a successful adoption.
• Families are frustrated with law firms because they lack a social service department skilled in evaluating, educating and guiding birth mothers through the adoption process. As a result, families are often matched with birth mothers who aren’t strongly committed to adoption, aren’t emotionally prepared and don’t understand the process.
• Families often must answer initial birth mother calls from their advertisements.
• In the early stages, most birth parents are intimidated to talk to an attorney.
• These law firms are normally not available in the evenings or on the weekends.
• Their sense of urgency can not be a priority, as they often are juggling other cases.
• Local law firms are susceptible to changes in their state laws, which can put them out of business. Florida, for example, changed their laws in 2001 and as a result, adoptions plummeted 50 percent the following year. The result caused many local agencies and adoption law firms to go out of business. National organizations simply focused their services in the other 49 states.
• Local law firms are also susceptible to negative statewide adoption stories, it could be foster home abuse such as was the case in Missouri. The negative newspaper articles made many pregnant women in Missouri choose to parent, which hurt local Missouri adoption law firms. Read the news story here. 

• Law firms are needed in every adoption, however, they should not be used to locate or counsel the birth mother.
• Clients who don’t understand the adoption process.
• Clients that have friends that are attorneys.
• Families who want control of the adoption process and have low trust of an adoption agency’s evaluation process.
• Families who are trying to save money because they believe that paying $500 in advertising and $5,000 for legal fees will be all they will occur. Advertising this little is rarely if ever effective.  In fact, families should be prepared to pay more than $10,000 in advertising expenses. Furthermore, the $5,000 legal fee is an estimate for a successful adoption and does not factor in adoptions that don’t work out (keep in mind 1 birth mother places for ten who consider). You also must factor in medical and living expenses, many that will also be lost when adoptions don’t work out. 
• When counseling is not provided to the family or the birth mothers, this often results in birth mothers changing their minds because they are not emotionally prepared for the loss and grief this process will bring them.
• Families who must be available 24 hours a day to answer the phone from possible birth mother inquiries.

1. How many attorneys on your staff handle the adoption legal work?
2. If you have other attorneys involved can you share with me their adoption experience?
3. What percentage of your practice is adoption legal work? How do you balance your other cases when an adoption case is obviously time sensitive? What happens if you have four adoptions occur on the same day? 
4. What is your hourly rate? 
5. Is the hourly rate at risk if the birth mother changes her mind? 
6. Does your law firm find all the birth mothers or do you have your clients advertise on their own?
7. Do you have clients advertise in other states in which you are not licensed? Do you then use other law firms to handle the process in that state? Do they charge an hourly rate? Is that hourly rate at risk if the birth mother changes her mind?
8. How many families do you have on your waiting list?
9. How many adoptions did you complete last year? How many where you located the birth mother? How many where your clients advertised to locate a birth mother?
10. How much do you suggest spending a month on advertising? Is that at risk if an adoption doesn’t work out? (Keep in mind the largest national agencies who buy advertisements at a discount, track carefully their marketing success, have qualified counselors talking to birth mothers, and have major networking contacts still average spending $8,000 to $10,000 in advertising for each successful adoption. How then can a small agency or individual family expect to spend less?)
11. How many clients in the past year simply quit advertising because it didn’t work out?
12. How much money can I lose in living and medical expenses if a birth mother changes her mind?
13. What are typical amount of living expenses your birth mother’s need?
14. Do their quoted fees include living, medical and legal expenses? 
15. Is your law firm licensed in more than one state?
16. Annually, how many of your adoptions are completed in other states?
17. Does the state you are licensed in come to your offices and review your files, personnel records and make sure your organization is complying with state law and regulations? 
18. Is there a time when your law firm would not be able to represent us? 
19. How many full-time staff members do you have on staff that will work on our adoption?
20. Do you have a Social Service Department on staff? How many are on staff? Can you provide me their credentials? Are they licensed by the state? 
21. If they only have one or two staff members, then ask, what happens if they retire, quit, etc.
22. Who handles our case if you become sick or seriously ill, how will that impact our ability to adopt through you?
23. If you don’t have a social service department then who evaluates your birth mothers? How are they qualified to do so?
24. What is the estimated cost to join your organization? Does that include only successful adoption cost estimates? 
25. Do you have any pending lawsuits?
26. Are there any cases where you fear a lawsuit is forthcoming?
27. Can I adopt more quickly through your organization than with a national agency? How can I independently verify your waiting time estimates?
28. Have you ever had a client lose more than $20,000 in failed adoption expenses? How about $15,000? How about $10,000? Will you put that in writing and send it to me?
29. Will I have to interact directly with the birth mother providing my contact information to her?
30. Can you give me what percentage of birth parents who join your agency who decide to parent?
31. Do you answer your phone 24 hours a day, seven days a week for potential birth mothers?
32. Pick up the phone and call them on Saturday or Sunday evening. This shows whether they are doing everything they can with your advertising dollar.
33. Do their upfront advertising fees expire?
34. Do they maintain and regulate pictures and letters correspondence with birth parents after the adoptive placement? 
35. Do they handle their entire process from A to Z?