Virginia Adoption Law: Trends and Updated Procedures

U.S. Supreme Court rulings, Virginia legislative changes, foster care regulatory changes, and the SIJS backlog-all have changed the strategies and procedures for handling an adoption in Virginia. In this program, Karen Stoutamyer Law, an attorney who limits her practice to adoption and immigration-related issues for children, will assist you in updating your adoption pleadings. Even if you usually only handle stepparent adoptions, you will learn to issue-spot and obtain tools to refine your adoption cases. You will also learn when to call in an immigration expert to partner with you in your domestic adoption case.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify different types of adoption and review updated code sections

2. Break down stepparent adoption strategies: non-consenting biological parent, new unmarried partner pathway, birth father registry

3. Analyze procedures for close relative adoptions

4. Apply step-by-step instructions to finalize a private agency, foster care, or foreign adoption

5. Recognize when to call in an immigration expert for the adoption of a foreign-born child in your domestic adoption