Indianapolis attorney Steve Kirsh, 49, and his brother, Joel, limit their law practice, Kirsh and Kirsh, strictly to adoptions. Of the 300 members of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, probably only 10 percent do that, Kirsh says. The analogy, he says, is, if you have cancer, see an oncologist, a specialist in the field. So, why wouldn't you want to do the same - seek an attorney who specializes in adoption - if you want to adopt?

Kirsh graduated from law school and passed the bar exam in 1979. By 1981 he'd started doing adoptions. His first case was a "failure," he says, when the couple he was representing conceived a child despite million-to-one odds before he found them a baby.

Since then, he hasn't had any failures. At first, he called abortion clinics in the Indianapolis area and spoke to every director, thinking someone might change her mind and want to birth her child, but not keep it. One referral led to a word-of-mouth recommendation, then another.

In 1985 he handled 15 adoptions; 34 in 1986; 88 in 1987, and 100 the next year. Now his firm averages 110 to 150 adoptions a year. Most of his work comes from referrals, although the firm does do some radio and billboard advertising, and is listed in the Yellow Pages in a 100-mile circumference of Indianapolis.

In all those years, he's never had an adoption successfully challenged. The reason, he says, is because he and his brother make sure to inform the birth parents of all their rights at every stage of the process, to give them every chance to back out of an adoption, and to follow Indiana law to the letter.

About half the birth mothers he meets do not follow through with the adoption. Eighty percent of those women will change their minds before they deliver. Of the ones who do go through with the adoption, "almost zero" will try to challenge it.

"I don't consider mothers who change their minds a failure," Kirsh says. "What I consider a failure would be when a baby is taken involuntarily from the mother - and I've had none of those. We don't 'take' babies from their mothers. I don't consider a birth mother changing her mind a failure. It's just part of the process, like falling down a number of times before you learn to walk."

On the other hand, a child being taken from his or her adoptive parents is the adoptive parents' worst fear, Kirsh says - and that's why it's important to make the adoption process airtight with proper legal procedures. What people don't realize is that the media plays up the horror stories, the cases where a birth parent wins back the child.

"That's one of the two or three main reasons adoptive parents choose to adopt internationally," Kirsh says. But after handling over 2,500 adoptions in 20 years - with no successful challenges - it's unrealistic for the media to focus on the sad stories, he says, because those stories usually deal with cases where someone didn't follow the law exactly. One such Indiana case, of where a birth father reclaimed his 2 1/2-year-old child, occurred simply because the attorney involved didn't use the proper forms for the adoption.

In addition to making sure all the legal ends are tied, to make the adoption successful for both the birth parents and the adoptive parents, Kirsh screens both sides carefully. He encourages the birth mother to seek counseling immediately. And, no matter what stage of the adoption process she's in, until the final papers are signed, if the birth mother says she's unsure of what she's doing, or that she doesn't want to do it anymore, Kirsh never tries to convince her otherwise.

To ensure that the baby will have good parenting, Kirsh investigates prospective parents thoroughly. They must be stable individuals with a good marriage, and financially secure.

Prospective parents also have to pass a health check-up, a criminal background check and a child abuse check. They also have to seek counseling: "The parents I represent can't give birth," Kirsh says. "But that doesn't mean they're ready to adopt. I want to make sure they'll see it as 'our baby' and not something second-best to a biological child."

He also wants to make sure the adoptive parents tell the child from the earliest moment possible that he or she is adopted, and that the birth parents relinquished the child out of love.

"They must understand the true love and courage it takes for a birth mother to proceed with an adoption," Kirsh says. "It's a misconception that these mothers don't want their babies. It's only because they love their babies dearly, and want more for them than they can provide, that they elect to proceed with the adoption."

Sunday, October 19, 2003 - http://kpcnews.com

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