Anyone works with an agency/attorney/fac not in your state?

MauidAims

Just curious if anyone has worked/signed with an agency/attorney/fac that is not in your state? I wonder if there are advantages or disadvantages to doing this.

Rachel Sonnier

We are working with an out of state agency. It's advantageous for us, because of the laws in our state are much more difficult to navigate v/s the laws in the neighboring state. The disadvantage is that it's 6 hours from home and we will most likely have to deal with ICPC. I'm sure every situation is different. 

ufsandra85

we are using a company out of cali and we are in VA. we did our research read the reviews (good and bad) and felt best with going with them for many reasons. we are using adoption network law center.

hway24

We did. We used an agency/law firm in CA, we live in GA. We didn't like any of the agencies we spoke with in our state. And we didn't have too many agencies local to us. After speaking to the agency we signed with we really liked them, also hoped that if we worked nationwide, we would get chosen a little quicker (we didn't). Doing an out of state adoption, can defintly have some drawbacks (travel, ICPC)  Our main basis for choosing the agency we did was cost, and average wait time.

LAD111707

We did. We live in Georgia and are using an attorney in Florida. The adoption laws in Georgia just aren't as good as the laws in Florida. However, we did have to wait on ICPC and had to spend a little over two weeks in Florida as our son was in the NICU. We were lucky the hospital let us board for some of the time so the expense of the hotel wasn't as bad and we were able to make it to 95% of his feedings.

IRR

Our lawyer is out of state, since our state only has 2 adoption attorney's as it is an agency state only.  We are using an agency from IL which is where our BM is located.  Advantages have been keeping the process more in our control.  Lower costs than the agencies in my state and being able to find BM in adoption friendly states.