Adoption

Adoption assistance

Flash Legal Clinic can help with your adoption in California today. Flash will provide professionally prepared/supervised legal documents to complete the process for your stepparent, adult, or independent adoption. 

Adoption is the legal process of establishing a legal parent-child relationship when the adopting parent is not the child’s biological or birth parent. That means that once the adoption is final, the adoptive parents have all the legal rights and responsibilities of a parent-child relationship. That new parent-child relationship is permanent and is exactly the same as that of a birth family. An adoptive parent can be a stepparent or domestic partner of one of the birth parents, a relative of the child who has been caring for the child, or someone not related to the child by blood.

Talk to a Lawyer

Talk to a lawyer about your family’s options before starting an adoption. Every family is different and there are many options through the adoption process depending on the make-up of your family. Each type of adoption is unique and have specific legal requirements to complete the process.

Client Education

Talk to a lawyer about your family’s options before starting an adoption. Every family is different and there are many options through the adoption process depending on the make-up of your family. Each type of adoption is unique and have specific legal requirements to complete the process.

Types of Adoption

  • The spouse or domestic partner of the child’s parent adopts that child.

  • The couple must be legally married or registered as domestic partners.

  • It is the most common type of adoption.

  • It is a little simpler than other types because 1 of the child’s birth parents still remains the child’s parent.

Independent adoption is when no adoption agency or the Department of Social Services is part of the adoption case. In these cases, if the existing and adopting parents agree, the parental rights of the existing parents do not have to be terminated (end).

Agency adoption is when the California Department of Social Services or a licensed adoption agency is part of the adoption case.

Adult Adoption is the legal process to establish a legal parent-child relationship between a person eighteen years or older who desires to be adopted by another person who is over the age of eighteen years old. 

The different types of adoption all have the same weight (i.e., step-parent, independent, agency). In all these types,the court ends the parental rights of the child’s birth parent(s), and the adoptive parent(s) become the children’s legal parents.