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Adoption & Family Formation Law

Adoptive Parents

Susan Moffet represents prospective adoptive parents wanting to adopt a baby or young child. Every family will have a current home study which includes criminal and child abuse clearances. If you are interested in more information contact my office!

Surrogacy/ART

Surrogacy occurs when a woman becomes pregnant for the purpose of carrying a child for intended parents

A woman is called a gestational surrogate when she becomes pregnant using a donor egg fertilized outside her womb. The family receiving the child are called the intended parents.

ART stands for Assisted Reproductive Technology. ART includes all fertility treatments where egg and sperm are combined in the laboratory and returned to the woman’s body. The woman can be the egg donor or an unrelated gestational carrier.

Susan Moffet provides professional, personalized service to clients who are either intended parents or surrogates. She works with reputable professionals to help her clients with the contract review and parentage establishment processes. She assists intended parents and surrogates who locate each other outside our office with the legal and practical aspects of the process.

Before beginning medical procedures, the intended parents and surrogate will enter into a contract with each other setting out each party’s obligations toward their mutual goal of achieving pregnancy, birth, and legal parenthood. The surrogacy contract will cover such issues as surrogate compensation, health and life insurance, non-covered medical expenses, medical screening, psychological evaluations, and attorney fees.

Susan Moffet will help you during the contract creation process and the subsequent legal process required to establish the intended parents' legal relationship to the child.


ADOPTION COST AND FEES

Initial Contact

We welcome the opportunity to talk with you about your adoption. We do not charge for answering your initial questions (by phone or in person) to determine if it is appropriate for us to work together. If we decide to work together, we will schedule additional time for a complete consultation and enter into an attorney fee agreement.

Flat Fees

Most agency adoptions, adult adoptions, and foreign re-adoptions can be finalized on a flat fee basis.

Hourly Fees

Independent, step-parent or co-parents, and complicated agency adoptions are billed under an hourly fee agreement. That way, you pay only for the time spent on your case.

Costs

Court filing fees, home study fees, birth parent pregnancy-related living expenses and attorney costs are billed to client.

Billing

 Your billing invoice will include an itemization of work performed, an accounting of trust account activity, and a breakdown of costs.