California Stepparent Adoption Lawyer | Woodland Hills
- Are you looking for a lawyer to help with stepparent adoption?
- Are you concerned about getting consent for adoption?
- Do you want to oppose someone’s efforts to adopt your child?
Contact Donald F. Conviser, at Warner Center Law Offices in Woodland Hills today.
Adoption is the process that establishes a legally recognized parent-child relationship between a non-biological parent and a child. Once complete, an adoption bestows all the legal rights and obligations of an official parent-child relationship. This means that the rights and obligations of the birth parent(s) are terminated and that the adopting parent(s) take over full responsibility for the support, care and education of the child.
Experienced Stepparent Adoption Attorney
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Stepparent adoption, i.e., adoption of your spouse’s child, is usually a relatively straightforward legal process and the most common form of adoption in the United States today. The first step in the stepparent adoption process is to seek consent from the child’s other parent to relinquish his or her parental rights and responsibilities regarding the child. Both the birth mother and the birth father have the primary legal right to consent to the adoption of their child.
Termination of Parental Rights
A necessary step in the adoption process is the termination of the parental rights of the parents whom the adopting parent is seeking to replace. In stepparent adoptions, the process normally begins by seeking the consent of the parent to relinquish his/her parental rights. This process can become more complicated if consent cannot be obtained. At that point, other avenues need to be explored to seek the termination of that parent’s rights and move forward with the stepparent adoption. Different procedures need to be used to seek termination of parental rights, depending on whether that parent is a biological parent, an assumed parent, or a presumed parent, and depending on that parent’s history of parental involvement with the child.
In California, either parent may have his or her parental rights terminated for a number of reasons, including but not limited to the following:
- Abandonment
- Failure to support the child
- Failure to communicate with the child
- Mental illness or deficiency
- Parental unfitness due to abuse or neglect
"Donald Conviser was a tremendous help to us in the adoption of our son. We were faced with many obstacles, and without Mr. Conviser's services, we would not have had the successful conclusion that we did." - HCW
To learn how Warner Center Law Offices’ attorney, Donald F. Conviser, can help you with an adoption, or to oppose an adoption of your child, call or e-mail us and seek the advice of a successful and experienced Adoption Attorney with more than 35 years of family law experience.
