resources for self-representing in a 2nd parent adoption?

[TheGirls]

Hi all!

So, my DP and I have 3 kids - I gave birth to DD in May '08, and DP adopted her through an attorney.  Problem is we live in a small town and no one hear has/had the foggiest idea how to handle the whole the lawyer was a very nice lady, and did get the job done, but it was a huge hassle.  They filed the wrong paperwork twice, made umpteen appointments for us to come in and fill out the same information on half a dozen different forms, messed up  on the homestudy thing, etc

Now myt DP has given birth to twin boys, who I intend to adopt.  But I really don't want to use the same lawyer and I'm not sure anyone else will be better.   As far as I know we are the ONLY lesbian couple with kids in the  county.

So I'm kinda thinking that we should try this on our own, but I can't for the life of me figure out where to get the forms & such. Our local courthouse was useless (they said to hire a lawyer).  It was abundantly clear that the previous lawyer was looking up these forms somewhere since she had never done this before, but I'm not sure where or if I can get ahold of the forms without beign a lawyer.   Internet searches just keep bringing up lists of states where 2nd parent adoption is legal, which doesn't help me!

FWIW, I'm in New York state.   The twins are 2mo and conceived with the help of a sperm bank, so there's no paternity to deal with.  The adoption is entirely uncontested, and we know who the social worker is who will do the home-study.   She  doesn't know what to do about the rest of the process though, she just does home-studies. 

Anyone do their own adoption? How did you go about it?

[laurakathy]

Could you try contacting a (relatively)local LGBTQ center to see if they have any attorney contacts?

[2moms3kids]

We have done 2 adoptions with a lawyer (one in MA and one in ME) and this third one we will be doing ourselves. Pretty much, we have the paperwork from the last one, so we just got new blank copies of the same papers, are getting the same affidavits from the sperm bank etc. and are going to file the paperwork ourselves. Our lawyer from last time told us it was such an easy process that we should do it ourselves this time. Since we have already done 1 in this county, the homestudy etc is waived and the judge will be the same one as last time.

You can get the adoption paperwork at the local courthouse, just go in there and say you need all the adoption paperwork (I read that you tried this an they were clueless....WOW! I have NO idea then, sorry!). Since you have done it once already, you could probably copy and paste most of the information to make it relevant to this time. Get the same affidavits etc that you had last time too.

GL!

-Sarah

[differentfamily]

I found this on a quick google search. I'm addicted to google searches.

http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork/nrcfcpp/downloads/information_packets/gay_lesbian_second_parent_adoption.pdf

[unoriginal]

We wanted to do our adoption without an attorney but in our county ALL adoptions must be done through a lawyer.  So aggravating.  We are paying over $1600 for a lawyer to fill out some forms (since there is obviously no parental rights to terminate).

[wehrli]

Thread crashing to say... It's good to see you over here, unoriginal! How's that li'l babe of yours?

[unoriginal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wehrli 

Thread crashing to say... It's good to see you over here, unoriginal! How's that li'l babe of yours?

She is great...2 months old today!  She is smiling all the time and it feels like a laugh may be coming soon :)

She has amazing blue-grey eyes which I hope she keeps!  She gets her 2 month vax shots on Thursday...not looking forward to it.