pros and cons agencies vs a lawyer

catchafallingstar76 · January 2013

hi I'm considering adoption for my baby and I was ewondering what are pros and cons to both?

dholsapp · January 2013

We used a lawyer and from the AP side I would go lawyer again. I would say the biggest downside for a EM would've that our lawyers didn't have social workers hired through them. There is an agency they refer the EMs to for counseling though, which means counseling is not mandatory for them either, which I kind of feel should be in most situations.

Ginger71 · January 2013

Well, we are aps in waiting but I can tell you why h and I decided to go with an agency....

We felt like with an agency we would have a bit more support and for someone to help us navigate open adoption and help us build our relationship I with bm. Our agency is big on education and we have learned so much. We even took classes and had to get educational credits by doing things like reading books and other stuff. I know our agency is very supportive if eps and thst was important to us, too.

The bottom line is that we liked the structure.

Best of luck with your decision.

Btw, check out the post below by cinnamon haze. There are some good responses there, too

maryoosa · January 2013

As an PAP, I'm a fan of agencies. Our agency seems to have a very VERY extensively supportive birth mother/family services and seems to very much work on educating PAP's about having healthy open adoptions with birth families.

There are dedicated birth mother groups run through my agency and a dedicated staff at the agency who work solely with the birth moms. I feel like this is a better fit (at least for my family) than working solely with an attorney.

amm78 · January 2013

Since I'm a hopeful adoptive mom, I can only answer from my own perspective. We chose to work with an agency because we like the focus on counseling for expectant moms. We think it's important for expectant moms considering adoption to have all the no-pressure counseling she needs, and our agency provides that. They actually provide lifetime counseling to moms who place through them, as well as counseling for the child if he/she needs it growing up.

crene84 · January 2013

We interviewed several agencies but ultimately chose to go with an attorney. In our area, it was much cheaper to go with an attorney and advertising was more effective on our own than if we had used one of the local agencies. It was a little awkward at times not having a SW but I wouldn't change a thing. As others stated, I do think counseling is very important and we had planned to offer that to the BM ourselves, but she just wasn't interested.

IRR · January 2013

We live in an agency only state and yet we decided to work with an attorney as well. We will still use an agency once we connect with an EM, but the reason we are working with an attorney is because we feel it is more personal than being one of over 100 families waiting. Also there are some EMs that would rather not work with an Agency, so even though we need to, from an EM perspective it will only be for counseling (depending on what state they live in). Also, many agencies don't allow direct contact with APs and EMs before the birth and with an attorney you have that contact immediately to start building a relationship. Best of luck either way you go.

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