What makes your office right for me?
Ishi Kunin has been involved with adoptions since her first job as a lawyer when she worked as a Deputy Attorney General for the Welfare Division terminating the parental rights of parents who abused and neglected their children. It is her passion. She is the author of the Adoption and Termination of Parental Rights sections of the Nevada Family Law Practice Manual. Both Ishi and Shoshana Kunin-Leavitt are Fellows with the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys.
How much will this cost?
Nevada law allows for the payment of "reasonable" expenses by the adoptive parents. These include pregnancy related medical and hospital expenses not covered by insurance or Medicaid, any living expenses during the period a birth mother is unable to work due to the pregnancy, including a short period of time thereafter, all agency fees, and all legal fees.
How long before you find me a birth mother?
There is no way to predict this because until we know your parameters, for example, is there a race restriction, or location restriction, or financial restriction, we cannot tell you how long. The average waiting time is from three months to eighteen months. Because Nevada does not permit attorneys to accept legal fees for the placement of children, and because advertising for children is not allowed in Nevada, many birth mothers are directed out of state. More than half of the babies that are placed with our clients are located by our clients whom we advise how to be proactive in the search process. Networking is critical and it speeds up the search process considerably.
What is an Open Adoption?
An Open Adoption is when birth parents and adoptive parents have had the opportunity to meet prior to the birth of the baby. They have the opportunity to discuss financial needs and contact wishes, both pre birth and post birth. Usually this process involves the assistance of the attorney and the case worker from the licensed child placing agency.
However, many people use the term “Open Adoption” and are actually referring to post adoption contact agreements. These are agreements negotiated prior to a birth parent relinquishing their parental rights where both the birth parent(s) and adopting parent(s) agree to certain post-adoption contact such as sending a picture of the child(ren) once a year.
What types of adoptions do you do?
- Independent adoptions: Where the birth mother personally chooses the adoptive parents, either through personal knowledge or with the assistance of others;
- Agency adoptions: Where the birth mother or the adoptive parents work with a licensed child placing agency and the adoptive parents are known or identified by the birth mother;
- Traditional adoptions: Where the birth mother relinquishes her parental rights to a licensed child placing agency and has no knowledge of the adoptive parents;
- International adoptions: Where the adoptive parents have either adopted a child from a foreign country or had a child placed with them from a foreign country.
