Adoption costs can price out middle-class

Oklahoma Supreme Court found fault with fees charged by attorneys and private investigator in adoption case.

BY NOLAN CLAY | Published: May 23, 2010 Comment on this article

More Info

Some expenses criticized by State Supreme Court

→Use of private investigator to track the birth mother for six months. She was watched even though she had already given up her boy and consented to adoption.

→Use of private investigator for surveillance on the biological father and his wife for 17 months.

→$20,000 flat fee charged by the first law firm. The fee was not reimbursed when adopting parents changed to a different firm.

→15 cents a page charged by the second law firm to copy thousands of pages. The attorneys’ contract specified 10 cents a page.

→About $12,000 for the birth mother’s living expenses. The adoption judge approved costs even though he was shown no receipts.

→$865 for medical-related costs. Adopting parents said the insurer paid all such costs.

→More than $13,000 to the birth mother’s attorney. That attorney only made two routine court appearances and went to one hearing.

→Duplicate attorney bills.

→$200 an hour for an attorney to observe adoption hearing already being handled by another attorney in the firm.

→$275 an hour charged by an attorney to prepare a document justifying a private investigator’s fee.

Note: The adoption costs in the Baby Boy A case were much higher than most. In nine more recent Oklahoma County cases, couples paid from $1,256 to $22,401, records show.

The legal fees included almost $5,000 for work on a six-page legal brief, records show. Almost $800 went to a private investigator to pay for delivering paperwork to two places.

Another $8,000 was charged for time attorneys spent talking on the phone.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court found fault with many of the fees charged by attorneys and a private investigator in the 2005 case. Justices on May 4 ordered an adoption judge to thoroughly re-examine every expenditure.

Justices ruled Oklahoma County Special Judge Larry Jones failed in his duty to be a gatekeeper who protects vulnerable prospective parents and keeps them "from making excessive payments.”

"The obvious goal to be achieved by this mandated district court inquiry of expenditures in … an adoption is to thwart the subtle as well as the apparent buying and selling of children,” Justice Steven Taylor wrote.

The opinion could lead to more affordable adoptions, said Oklahoma County Public Defender Bob Ravitz. Some judges were rubber-stamping expenses if attorneys had a signed contract, he said.

"It will put a big dent in people coming from out of state to buy babies,” Ravitz said.

Ravitz and his assistants petitioned the Supreme Court to review the expenses in the case.

"There are so many middle-class … families that will make loving parents … . Those people are out of luck,” Ravitz said. "The cost of adoptions skyrocketed, and only rich people could afford it.”

The child, now 4, is identified in the opinion as Baby Boy A. The adopting parents live in another state. They were not identified. The parents hired three law firms, two in Oklahoma City and one in their state.

The couple’s expenses are listed in the opinion. They paid the first firm, Julie Demastus and Tina Peot, a $20,000 flat fee.

Page 1 of 2

1 2 Next