From the first negotiations with your surrogate, all the way to when you receive your child’s birth certificate, each step of surrogacy involves help from a surrogacy lawyer. Finding a great surrogacy attorney can make a huge difference in your surrogacy journey.
A surrogacy professional can help you connect to a great surrogacy lawyer and can offer case management and social work expertise. You can get help from a surrogacy professional here.
Your surrogacy attorney will be able to help you interpret your state’s surrogacy laws and ensure that your rights are protected throughout your surrogacy journey.
What is a Surrogacy Attorney?
A surrogacy attorney, also known as a reproductive attorney or surrogacy lawyer, is a lawyer who is trained in family law, with a particular educational emphasis or established practice in surrogacy. Surrogacy attorneys can help potential parents create agreements with a surrogate and create and file legal documentation throughout the surrogacy process.
What do Surrogacy Attorneys Help With?
Surrogacy attorneys are necessary for many steps in the surrogacy process.
- Ensuring that you and your surrogate are abiding by your state surrogacy laws before creating a contract
- Negotiating a surrogacy contract with your surrogate
- Creating pre-birth orders
- Filing paperwork with the state
- Creating and filing post-birth documents
- Filing legal adoption paperwork if necessary
How are Surrogacy Lawyers Accredited?
There is no standardized accreditation for reproductive lawyers or surrogacy agencies, however, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine has standardized many surrogacy practices across the United States and surrogacy professionals and surrogacy lawyers should stay up to date with this professional organization.
How to Find Surrogacy Lawyers Near Me
The best way to find a surrogacy lawyer is to look for a reputable and well-established surrogacy agency that can assist you. Surrogacy agencies that have an established history of successful surrogacies are sure to have contacts with great lawyers.
Surrogacy agencies can not only find a surrogacy lawyer that can help you they can also connect you with many other necessary services for surrogacy. You can get a free consultation here.
Here are some other options to find surrogacy lawyers:
- Ask friends or family members who have been through the surrogacy process
- Find surrogacy agencies through infertility groups
- Find surrogacy agencies through LGBTQ parenting groups and websites
- Seek out adoption counseling or infertility counseling
- Ask an adoption agency—surrogacy lawyers must be well-versed in adoption in many states
How is a Surrogacy Attorney Different from a Surrogacy Agency?
The definition of a surrogacy agency is not strict. Since surrogacy agencies have no standard accreditation across the United States, lawyers or former surrogates without experience or formal training can start businesses matching surrogates and intended parents and call them surrogacy agencies.
However, to find a great surrogacy agency, you will need to find an agency that offers many services, and lawyers or former surrogates may not be able to offer all of these necessary skills and services.
In addition to legal services, here are some of the other necessary skills and services you will need:
- Matching services to help you find a surrogate who fits your needs
- Advertising services to find great surrogates
- Physical and mental health screening services to assure you and your surrogate are prepared
- Social work and case management to give you individual support throughout the surrogacy process
- Mediation services to help you and your surrogate create and maintain a connection during pregnancy
You can get a free consultation from a surrogacy agency that does all of the above if you click here.
