Adoption Legal Costs
By The Staff at AGoHA, 5/29/09
Written by Dewey Crepeau, Executive Director and Adoption Attorney of nearly 30 years
Normally you see articles written by our Director of Social Services. However, one of the advantages of having an adoption agency with an attorney as the Executive Director is that we have some insight into the legal aspects of adoption. Next to agency fees, legal costs are usually the next single largest (and occasionally the largest) expenditure that a family makes as a part of the adoption process.
Legal costs vary greatly. They vary from one state to another, and they often vary a lot even within a state. Some reasons are pretty simple. In some states, there is more legal work involved in an adoption than in another state. Occasionally, for example, there is more work involved due to the position of the participants in the adoption. While it is has been our experience that a birth father almost never blocks an adoption, sometimes his lack of cooperation causes greater legal fees. Sometimes birth mothers miss appointments or otherwise cause delays that may add to the legal process. Adoptive parents may feel more comfortable proceeding one way (legally) in an adoption than another, less costly way.
I have also noticed over the years, well decades actually, that legal fees for adoptions seem to increase in waves. We will go several years with one average price, and then suddenly everyone seems to have raised their rates all at once, and voila, I am finding that what was an average price last year has suddenly increased by a thousand dollars or so.We can’t avoid the legal process in our system of adoption these days. Lawyers may not agree with all the laws and rules that they have deal with (and charge you for) but they do have to be followed. More next time on legal costs associated with adoption.
