Family Law Attorney Explains: Adoption (4 Most Common Types)

Adoptions are our happy place. We love helping families complete their circle. We want to give you give you a little bit more information on the different type of adoptions that we can help you with to get your family complete.

If you’re looking for information regarding adopting in the state of Georgia check out the video here and keep reading. You’ll also be able to find more information through our past articles on adoption.

Step-Parent Adoption

So the most common type of adoptions people do are step-parent adoptions. Step-parent adoptions involve a step-parent adopting their spouse’s child. What a lot of people don’t know is that even that simple adoption process, the step-parent adoption, still involves terminating the actual biological and legal parent rights to that child. That’s the ugly part that we would help you through so you can get to the happy part of completing your family circle.

What’s an Independent Adoption?

The second type of adoptions that we regularly deal with in our office are independent adoptions. In independent adoptions, the parents looking to adopt the child have no legal relationship with the child. 

So, what that means is that within the independent adoption process, we have to terminate the legal rights to the child of not only the biological mother of the child, but if there is a legal father, we also have to terminate their parental rights. Here’s a secret, even if the father is not a legal father, there is still a legal process that we have to go through to terminate any rights that person may have to the child before the adoption can be finalized.

There’s also another wrinkle; sometimes grandparents object to these adoptions as well. So when we step into the case, we are terminating parental rights on a basic level and on a secondary level for any secondary family members who may object to the adoption.

Second-Parent Adoption

Another type of adoption that we handle in our office are second-parent adoptions. So, second-parent adoptions were primarily utilized by members of the LGBTQ community to adopt their spouse’s or their partner’s children. When the Supreme Court ruled in the Obergefell case that the state of Georgia had to recognize same-sex couple marriages some years ago, second-parent adoptions, for the most part, fell to the wayside because now that LGBTQ people could get married to each other, they could do step-parent adoptions, which by the way, is a much easier process than the second parent adoptions. 

However, second-parent adoptions are still an option for some families, and that’s something that we are prepared and equipped to discuss with you if that is a good fit for you completing your family circle with our family law team.

Adult Adoptions

Adult adoptions. That’s a thing. Did you know that? If you are over the age of 18 years and you want someone to adopt you, we can make that happen. You don’t have to terminate parental rights, you don’t have to deal with surrender of parental rights, you just get to file the adoption, we notify the court, and the adoption gets put in place. It’s a much quicker process, no background checks. We can’t find you an adult to adopt you, but if you are an adult and you know of another adult, for instance, someone who’s been in your life, all of your life, who’s acted as a mother or a father to you, and you want to legalize that process, there’s a process for that. 

15 years of experience in Atlanta and throughout Georgia

Which of the adoptions that we mentioned is a right fit for your family? If you’re interested in step-parent adoptions, independent adoptions, second-parent adoptions, or adult adoptions, or any kind of adoptions, we can help you with that. Pick up the phone, give us a call, we’re happy to help you get started in your process in completing your family.