Ethics Opinions
Iowa Supreme Court Board of Professional Ethics and Conduct
Date of Opinion:
12/05/2000
Opinion Number:
00-08
Title:
ADOPTION -- PRACTICE
Opinion:
You request an opinion concerning the propriety of the “structure and procedures” you have adopted in operating your practice of the law on the one hand and a child placement agency (adoption agency) owned by you and served by you as its lawyer, on the other hand.
Both now are proposed to be operated in the same building, but in separate quarters therein, in accordance with Formal Board Opinion 98-22 (1999).
Your detailed documentation of the operation is acknowledged.
It is the opinion of the Board that your proposed location and operation of the two entities would not be improper as long as operations are conducted separately as was proposed and pursuant to Opinion 98-22.
There are two main phases in adoption proceedings. The first is a “determination” phase. It consists of all the background study, the determinations that must be consummated pursuant to Chapters 600 and 600A of the Iowa Code and includes termination of parental rights.
The second phase is the adoption proceeding itself, before the Court.
In the “determination” phase there is a myriad of questions which must be answered. It is the function of the adoption agency to find a fitting adoptive child and to match the adoptive parents with the birth parents and the child in order to provide a satisfactory adoption. This function is involved and is set out in detail in Chapters 600 and 600A of the Iowa Code and concludes with termination of parental rights of the birth parents.
It is the opinion of the Board that the proposed operation of the law-office-adoption area of practice and the adoption agency as proposed would not be improper provided there is a full written disclosure by you of your relationship as owner-counsel of your agency and legal parental representative including consent in writing by the adopting parents, and, further, that you advise them of their right to select independent legal counsel to represent their interests in the adoption proceedings governed by Iowa Code Chapter 600 and 600A.