Adoption Attorney

Handling Adoptions For All Oregon Families

Shelley L. Fuller PC is proud to do adoptions for Oregon families. This can mean filing the petition to adopt a child, representing a birth parent who needs legal advice regarding relinquishing their legal rights to a child, or representing a parent whose rights may be terminated.

Few events are more exciting than welcoming a new member into the family. A legal misstep, however, can derail the process, causing unnecessary stress and delays. If there was ever an area of law where you absolutely should have an attorney, it is adoption law.

Our office has been helping families in Oregon to add to their family through adoption for over 20 years. We know the steps to take to help you bring that new family member home from the hospital, adopt a relative who needs a parent or make a “family” official by completing a step-parent or adult adoption.

If you are seeking an adoption, call my office today at 503-626-1808.

Stepparent Adoptions

Stepparent adoptions are the most common type of adoption in Oregon. For many blended families, a stepparent adoption serves as a legal recognition of the day-to-day reality that a child's real parents are the people caring for them on a regular, consistent basis and that a biological parent has been noticeably absent. Once a stepparent adoption is final, the stepparent, now deemed the legal parent, takes over the legal rights of the biological parent whose rights were relinquished or terminated.

Stepparent adoptions are done for a variety of reasons. The first being love. If you’ve been a child’s stepparent for one year, three years or even ten years, you have invested your heart, time and your home in protecting and raising that child. Why not make it official?

Another really important reason to adopt your stepchild is to protect them in the event that the custodial parent passes away and the other parent is absent. Without a stepparent adoption, a child could be forced to live with the absent parent if the other parent dies. Finalizing a stepparent adoption is the best way to prevent that from happening.

Adult Adoptions

Adult adoptions in Oregon are straightforward and can be completed relatively quickly. The process involves submitting a petition to adopt and a consent from both the “adult child” and the adopting person along with a Judgment of Adoption. There is no notice to the adult child’s legal parents and no one needs to consent to the adoption other than the person being adopted and the person doing the adoption.

Relative Adoptions

Relative adoptions are slightly more complicated than stepparent adoptions. The state imposes home studies, post-placement fees and other requirements on relatives wishing to adopt a child, but those requirements can be waived in some circumstances.

When first-degree and second-degree relatives such as grandparents, great grandparents, aunts and uncles or great aunts and uncles wish to adopt, the home study can be waived provided the child has lived in the adoptive parents' home for at least one year.

If adopting an infant, a home study can be waived if the child has lived continuously with the adoptive parents since birth and for at least six month prior to a request to waive the home study.

Home Studies are done by an adoption agency and cost approximately $2,000-$3,000. There is also a post-placement home study requirement but this may be waived if a child has been living in the home for at least one year.

Contact An Experienced Portland Family Adoption Lawyer Today

If you would like to become your child's legal parent, because you've always been there and have always been "dad" or "mom," contact the office of Shelley L. Fuller PC to schedule a time to talk. We do appointments in person, by telephone or video meetings and we’re committed to getting you scheduled for a consultation as soon as possible.