Ethical Lawyering in Adoption: Centering the Child in Adoption Law

Abstract

Legal scholars have engaged in robust discussions of ethics in adoption law, but have paid little attention to the lawyering role in adoption. This article seeks to fill this gap by reviewing the disconnect between ethical obligations as conceived by lawyers’ rules of professional responsibility and societal norms of ethics; and proposes an ethic of care for lawyers that centers the interests of the child. This article draws on Tronto’s four phases of care, and argues that centering the needs of children for continuing relationships leads to ethical adoption lawyering.

Keywords:

• Adoptees
• adoption
• birthfather
• birthmother

Acknowledegments

I gratefully acknowledge the financial and institutional support of Texas A & M, without which this article would not have been possible. As is the tradition among those who write about adoption, I wish to note my place in the adoption triad: I am an adoptive parent of two children via international adoption.