Training Course Syllabus:

Troubleshoot the Toughest Adoption Challenges to Ensure a Smooth Path to a New Life

Adoption is a stressful process for all the parties involved. Are you prepared to assist and guide your clients through this highly emotional time in their lives? Whether you represent the birth parents or the adoptive parents, our faculty will update you on the latest adoption laws, help you understand various procedures and requirements, and give you the background you need to handle adoption cases without unnecessary delays, ethical problems, or surprises. Enroll today!

• Get all the adoption assistance available for your clients, including tax credits.
• Hear a representative of the bench share his preferences and pet peeves and warn you of the common mistakes he encounters.
• Prepare for problems such as third-party challenges and dissolution of adoption.
• Understand how a parent's service in the military may affect the adoption.
• Tackle sensitive ethical issues and other problems that are unique in adoption situations.
• Advise clients knowledgeably with an understanding of current adoption law.
• Share and learn from stories of post-adoption success and heartaches to better help clients after placement.

1. CONTESTED ICWA (INDIAN CHILD WELFARE ACT) ADOPTIONS
   9:00 - 10:00, Michael J. Herrod and Philip McCarthy Jr.
   This session will focus on what happens when, despite your best efforts, a Tribe intervenes in an adoptive placement, with a focus on litigated cases.
2. ISSUES IMPACTING ADOPTION
   10:00 - 11:00, Scott E. Myers and Kathryn A. Pidgeon
1. SCRA (Servicemembers Civil Relief Act)
   Whether a birth parent is in the military can impact many aspects of an adoption, including the validity of service of notices or a final decree.
2. Adoption Tax Credit
   This law has recently been extended. Its application to private and agency adoptions is important to understand, as well as its applicability to failed adoptions.
3. Social Security Numbers
   When can a child's Social Security number be changed post-adoption will be discussed, as well as how to do it.
3. WHEN ADOPTIONS FAIL AND PREVENTIVE MEASURES
   11:15 - 12:15, Michael J. Herrod, Rita A. Meiser and Deborah Mayhan
   This session will explore the concepts of disrupted adoption, adoption dissolution and wrongful adoption, and focus on the resources and services available to help prevent them from occurring.
4. A VIEW FROM THE BENCH
   1:30 - 2:30, Commissioner Mark H. Brain
   This session will provide an opportunity to discuss adoption issues with a representative of the bench. Practice tips and guidance will be offered.
5. ETHICAL DILEMMAS IN ADOPTION CASES
   2:30 - 3:30, Rita A. Meiser, Michael J. Herrod, Philip McCarthy Jr. and Kathryn A. Pidgeon
   This session will be a panel discussion of a series of ethical scenarios with ambiguous issues. It will offer answers to some of the keenest ethical dilemmas in adoption law practice today.
6. POST-PLACEMENT ADOPTION ISSUES
   3:45 - 4:45, Beverly A. Quidort
   This session will feature a discussion of issues of openness in adoptions after placement.

Seminar Summary:

Whether you represent the birth parents or the adoptive parents, our faculty will update you on the latest adoption laws, help you understand various procedures and requirements, and give you the background you need to handle adoption cases without unnecessary delays, ethical problems, or surprises. (see full course description)

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