LAW 597 - Adoption Law Seminar

The course will provide some preparation for counseling and representing persons who are unable to have children by normal reproduction or who prefer to become parents through adoption. We will study statutory bases for terminating the status of birth parents and for selection and approval of adoptive parents. We will learn the legal consequences of adoption, obstacles to adoption that arise from state and national boundaries, and what occurs when an adoption is disrupted after the child has lived with the adoptive parents for some time. We will also devote some attention to the law governing the alternative to adoption that is presented by assisted reproduction.