Adoption Law Centers

• Law centers, like facilitators, often have large advertising budgets devoted to reaching out to birth mothers across all 50 states.
• Waiting times are usually lower than most adoption professionals.
• The name in their company title “law center” provides a comfort to their clients. 

• Like facilitators, law center files are not annually or periodically reviewed by any objective person, government or organization. While a law center may be certified by the California Bar Association, they will only review the attorney’s work who owns the practice if a complaint is filed. Since the attorney who owns the law center is not the actual one providing legal services in other states, there is often no legal work to review. In other words, if those attorneys in other states do not properly do their job, it does not adversely affect the law center’s certification. With no objective file review, the law center’s services can not be properly monitored or regulated. Click here to see how professionals are regulated.
• Most centers only remain involved in the early stages of the adoption process. As a result, adoptive families experience more failed adoptions, which lead to disappointments both emotionally and financially.
• Like facilitators, families can become frustrated with law centers 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.
• Law center cost estimates are often 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.
• Some states feel law centers are trying to provide services in states they are not licensed to do so.  You would be smart to check with each state's attorney general's office to determine if investigations are on going. 
• Law centers typically provide 45 percent of the services of adoption agencies and yet many charge higher fees than full service adoption agencies.
• Law Centers can attract birth mothers focused on high living expenses, thus leading to increased financial risk and disruptions
• Some have advertising contracts that expire, therefore you may pay double for advertising.
• States such as California have passed laws in attempt to help regulate law centers and facilitators; it is still up in the air whether law centers will have to comply with such regulations. Even if they are required to comply, the regulations will do little to protect clients who join these organizations.
• Many law centers lack qualified staff to provide the proper couseling to adoptive families and birth parents as they go through the adoption process.
• Law centers typically lack the expertise to know the complexities of the various states they try to match adoptive couples with birth parents in. 

• Clients who want to adopt quickly.
• Clients who are not worried about financial budget or losses.
• Clients who are willing to handle several stages of the adoption process.
• Clients who want to be gender specific.
• Clients who want control of the couseling and legal process of the adoption process.
• Clients who want an organization to advertise for them nationally.
• Families who plan on spending evenings and weekends answering their phone to couseling birth parents themselves. 

1. How many families do you have on your waiting list?
2. How many placements did you complete last year?
3. Is your law center certified? By how many states?
4. Is your law center able to practice law in other states?
5. Annually how many of your adoptions are completed in other states?
6. Does the state you are certified in come to your offices and review your files, personnel records and make sure your organization is complying with state law and regulations? 
7. Does the attorney who owns your law center discuss our case with the law firms you will be referring our case to?   How involved is this attorney in our case?  If it is over 100 cases, you should ask how they are able to handle so many cases? The top adoption attorneys in the United States are typically involved in 40-50 adoptions annually. It keeps them very busy.
8. If you refer our case to another law firm, and if you aren’t licensed to perform services in that state then I assume you aren’t able to stay involved in the process? 
9. If you remove yourself once the birth mother selects our family, then how do you verify the quality of work provided by the other law firm?
10. How much money can I lose to the other law firm if the adoption doesn’t work out?
11. How much money can I lose in living and medical expenses if a birth mother changes her mind?
12. 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? 
13. If you remove yourself from the process, once we are referred to another law firm how is your social work department helpful when the birth mother is wavering? 
14. If you don’t have a Social Service Department then who evaluates your birth mothers?
15. What is the estimated cost to join your agency? Does that include only successful adoption cost estimates? 
16. Do their quoted fees include living, medical and legal expenses?
17. Are you being investigated by any attorney general’s offices? Are you not allowed to perform services in certain states because of the type organization you are?
18. Are any of your upfront fees at risk? Is there any point in time where I would be required to pay the upfront fee again?
19. Are you licensed as a facilitator in your state? Is any government body reviewing whether you should be indeed licensed as a facilitator?
20. If you are not licensed to perform adoptions in other states, then how do you know the complexities and challenges in other states? If your attorney is the expert, then what happens if he/she retire, etc.
21. How long has this attorney been running your law center? How experienced were they previously in adoption?
22. Since being certified by the Bar does not review or inspect your files and since any attorney can start another unregulated law center, what is to prevent your organization from merely shutting down and starting another one if you are sued by your clients?
23. How do I know your organization isn’t about to go out of business?
24. Do you have any pending lawsuits?
25. Are there any cases where you fear a lawsuit is forthcoming?
26. Can I adopt more quickly through your organization than with a national agency? How can I independently verify your waiting time estimates?
27. 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?
28. If you typically aren’t the law firm handling my case, how does joining your organization benefit me? 
29. How then are you different than a facilitator?
30. Will I have to interact directly with the birth mother providing my contact information to her?
31. Can you give me what percentage of birth parents who join your agency decide to parent?
32. If I do not adopt within your timeframe, will I have to pay more money for additional advertising? If so, how long is my contract valid before I have to renew services with you? (ma)
33. Do you answer your phone 24 hours a day, seven days a week for potential birth mothers?
34. 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.
35. Do their upfront advertising fees expire?
36. Do they maintain and regulate pictures and letters correspondence with birth parents after the adoptive placement?
37. Do they handle their entire process from A to Z ?