Do You Really Need An Adoption Lawyer?
July 29, 2008
When thinking of adoption, those couples who wish to adopt an infant or put an infant up for adoption should arrange the services of an adoption lawyer to prevent any potential problems. All too often couples who are not represented end up losing their savings because they have not employed an adoption lawyer to represent them in an effort to save some money. In light of this, you should always have your adoption lawyer with you at any meeting with the baby or child donor (or representative) so if they are less likely to ask for money up front.
It is your adoption lawyer’s responsibility to point out at the first meeting just what is to be expected during the adoption period and the law regarding the process and to re-iterate that no money will change hands at this point. This can stop the most common deception carried out on adoptive parents of handing over cash to the baby’s or child’s agent (or mother) because they need it for legal fees. Then it is just a matter of having the donor supply details of their attorney so the adoption lawyer can contact him or her directly to ascertain if this is a genuine request.
It is important to remember that the responsibility for obtaining legal help for the birth mother is not that of the adoptive parents. In order to ensure fair play on the part of the birth mother, the adoption lawyer will request contact details for her including a real address where she can be contacted. Your legal representative will advise against sending out money so the birth mother can make travel arrangements as it is very easy to cash these tickets in and would be virtually untraceable.
The adoption lawyer will, at an early stage, ensure that the birth mother is actually pregnant, a situation that can be overlooked by the adopting couple. Your adoption lawyer will also advise not to accept any documents of proof at face value and have them checked and verified. The situation may need to be discussed at a meeting with your lawyer if after a number of attempts documentary evidence, of pregnancy for example, fails to be produced.
Another tactic is when an adoption scammer will pose as somebody acting on behalf of a pregnant friend who would like to put her baby up for adoption and make contact with as many people looking to adopt as possible. To avoid this type of deception, have your adoption lawyer inquire about contact with the actual birth mother and if this request is denied from the onset, avoid it at all costs.
At this point it should be easy to determine whether the person contacting many couples is also the same person who is offering their child up for adoption. An adoption lawyer will find a deception such as this easy to check on as there will be similar phone numbers and email addresses etc.
In the beginning stages of adoption, adoptive parents must be extremely aware of the potential of getting deceived and this is why retaining the services of an adoption lawyer is so important. For a couple that may have been waiting many years to get to this point it is easy to become wrapped up in the event and not seeing what is going on but a little commonsense will stop any sadness later on.
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