The attorney's role is to devise a legal strategy for ensuring a child's safe, permanent placement in your home. Your lawyer should be able to help you identify the specific risks in your adoption. The legal strategy should also take into consideration practical and common sense concerns like whether the birthmother has health insurance or medical assistance, whether the birthfather will voluntarily sign a consent to the adoption or a termination of his parental rights, or, if the birthparents are minors, whether your state requires parental consent. If you look for a child on your own, an attorney should be able to educate you on and help you use techniques to locate a birthmother making an adoption plan. The attorney's role, however, varies from state to state.
Some states allow attorneys to handle the adoption from start to finish.
In other states, the attorney's role is strictly a legal one of drafting legal documents and representing you in court. Since adoption law is highly specialized and very complicated, you must be careful to hire someone who knows what he or she is doing. The attorney's experience handling adoptions like yours is critical. Also, the attorney should be sensitive to the psychological factors in adoption, and he or she should have good common sense. Some adoptive parents prefer to hire an attorney who is also an adoptive parent.