Ethica (www.ethicanet.org), an organization started by adoptive parents in hopes of stopping ethical abuses in adoption, has a great article online about why it's a bad idea to allow attorneys to arrange adoptions. The link is here.

I especially appreciate this article because it's written by an attorney, Kitty Vickers, who also happens to be a social worker and an adopted person. With her triple role, she really knows what she's talking about, from all sides of the fence. Although she is writing to potential adoptive parents in this article, her words also apply to you, the pregnant woman.

When you're in a crisis pregnancy, you desperately need someone to represent you and your interests. An attorney doesn't do this. He or she works solely for the hopeful adoptive parents, with the aim of making sure an adoption comes through for them. But because the attorney interacts with you and often appears, on the face of it, to be thinking of your needs, this conflict of interest isn't always clear.

As Vickers note, this doesn't mean that attorneys are bad people or that some don't do fine jobs. But they are never working for you, the expectant parents. In a private, attorney-facilitated adoption, unless you take the unlikely step of hiring your own counsel, you don't have anyone working for you.

Another problem is that attorneys don't have training in social work, and they often are not aware of (and don't know how to deal with) the complex emotions and touchy situations that permeate the adoption experience. They know how to get the adoption done, but they don't necessarily know how to manage the deep feelings along the way. They have book knowledge, but no special psychological or emotional training. It's like going to a mechanic instead of a doctor.

Even knowing this, some expectant parents still strongly dislike the idea of ceding control to an agency, and prefer to go the private route, despite the many risks involved in forgoing counseling. If this is you, please just remember that if you make this choice, you will be on your own. Things could go well or things could go poorly, but if they take a downhill turn, you don't have any recourse.

An attorney may offer lip service to your legal rights, but he or she cannot serve two clients at once. In a privately-arranged adoption, you are not the client.