Helping Our Clients Adopt
When a child's natural parents are unable to care for him or her due to unfitness, abandonment, death or some other tragic circumstance, the adoption system creates a positive opportunity for someone to step in and take on the responsibilities of a parent.
At Connolly & Shireman in Houston, our attorneys represent clients seeking to adopt children privately or through the Child Protective Services (CPS) system. To discuss your adoption options with an experienced lawyer, contact us to schedule a consultation.
Adoption After Termination of Parental Rights
One major aspect of our adoption practice is representing grandparents, foster parents and other caretakers seeking to adopt children out of the Texas CPS system. Once a child's parents have had their parental rights terminated, the opportunity to adopt the children is then available to someone else.
The CPS system is a unique and complex area of law with which our attorneys are particularly highly experienced, receiving many referrals from other lawyers in the area.
It should by no means be taken for granted that the people who care for children while they are under CPS conservatorship will be granted a request for adoption. This is a separate legal procedure, and various parties may assert that they are suitable adoptive parents.
Adoption by appropriate caretakers is a positive resolution to the CPS process and something we encourage by representing people seeking to adopt.
Private Adoption
We also regularly handle private adoptions, including adoptions by stepparents who have become co-primary caretakers of their spouses' children.
As in CPS cases, stepparent adoption cannot move forward, assuming the child's other natural parent is still alive, without termination of that parent's rights over the child. In some cases, parents will voluntarily relinquish their parental rights in order to end their child support obligations.
To learn more about any type of adoption under Texas law, contact us to speak with one of our knowledgeable attorneys.
