Legal 500 recognises Osbornes’ Family Department!

Osbornes has again been recognised by the Legal 500 as one of the leading family law firms in London.

The Legal 500, published this month, is one of the leading independent directories of law firms in the UK. They have this to say about Osbornes:-

“The ‘excellent’ Osbornes is consistently recommended by market observers and regularly receives referrals from high-ranking competitors.”

Both Julian Beard (Head of Department) and Naomi Angell (international adoption) are recommended.

Find me a family…

news source: www.osbornes.net

Naomi Angell  of Osbornes takes us through the adoption process     

Naomi Angell

THE RECENT TV PROGRAMME Find me a Family focussed on the problems in finding adoptive families for the hard to place children in the care system who struggle to find a family to call their own.

The starting point for people thinking of adoption is often a baby or toddler so that they can have the closest experience to bringing up their own child. However there are now very few babies available for adoption, with seismic changes in social attitudes towards unmarried mothers,abortion and family structures.

The programme encouraged families thinking about adopting to look beyond the cute babies or toddlers to the children waiting in the care system to find a family; children with medical problems, sibling groups who should not be separated unless there is no alternative or older children.

Find me a Family also followed three very different types of families: a married couple who had been unable to conceive a much wanted second child after having their first; a single woman; and a male same sex couple.

The Adoption and Children Act 2002, the most up to date Act of Parliament on domestic adoption, introduced the right for gay couples and heterosexual cohabiting couples to adopt. The TV programme followed the families through the adoption process, a system with a reputation for its intrusiveness, capriciousness and length and dispelled some of the myths while explaining others.

The question is often asked why being assessed for adoption has to be so rigorous when having your own baby can happen without thought or planning and does not involve having to answer social workers’ questions about your own childhood experiences and your views about disciplining your future child. What a family will learn in the preparation and assessment process for adoption is that they need to understand themselves and their responses to situations when bringing up a child who has lost its own family.

It is not true that age or weight are automatic bars to adopting. But an adoption agency will need to be satisfied that an adoptive family is of an age and is likely to be in good enough health to bring an adopted child up into adulthood, to minimise the risk of the child suffering a second loss during their childhood.

A family’s application to adopt will go before the adoption agency’s adoption panel. The adoption panel is independent of the adoption agency and includes adopters,adopted adults and a doctor, as well as social workers. They will consider the detailed report prepared by the family’s social worker and make a decision on whether the family is suitable to adopt. The adopters will be able to attend the panel meeting and have a right to an independent review by a national body if they are not satisfied with the decision.

With a positive home study report the search for a child can start. The family’s social worker will work with them in trying to identify the right child for that family. As the TV programme showed, the time this takes can vary greatly. The child’s social worker needs to be sure that the family are right for that child. Where a suitable match is possible, the child’s social worker will meet the adoptive family and give them detailed information on the child’s background and needs. Then the adoption panel will recommend whether there should be a match between the child and if positive, introductions between the child and the adoptive family will begin.

Once the child joins the adoptive family, the adopters will apply to the court for an adoption order. With recent changes in the law this is unlikely to be a difficult process as any opposition by the child’s birth parents to the adoption will have been dealt with by the court before the child was placed with the adopters. If there are unexpected problems in the adoption proceedings, the local authority should pay the adopter’s legal costs for representation. In all, a long journey and not without its challenges, but an opportunity to change the lives of the children waiting for a family to call their own and of the adopters hoping to have a child to make their lives complete, while at the same time giving a future to a child in need.

Naomi Angell specialises in children’s law and has particular expertise in international and domestic adoption,children’s cases with an immigration interface, child protection and alternative reproduction cases, such as surrogacy. She chairs the adoption panel of a national adoption agency and has been closely involved in the parliamentary process of the recent new adoption legislation. She is a Consultant at Osbornes and qualified as a solicitor in 1973. Contact her by email naomiangell@osbornes.net or call 0207681 8687.

Advice on Child Adoption

There are varying laws and jurisdictions regarding adoption. A closed adoption prevents contact between the biological parents and the adopted person. An open adoption allows varying degrees of contact however, they are not legally enforceable and may be closed at any time.

When applying to adopt, the potential parents may be required to be interviewed and undergo financial, medical, and criminal record checks. This can be carried out by either the adoption agency or by an independent or state authority.

The cost to adopt varies between countries. Adoption charges are illegal in some countries while in others, the adoption must be paid on a non-profit basis. Financial assistance is offered by many adoption programs. International adoptions include additional costs such as travel expenses and legal document translation fees.

Osbornes has a team headed by Naomi Angell in this particularly specialised area of children’s law.  Naomi Angell, Mark Freedman, and Bridget Thompson all specialise in domestic and step parent adoption and, in addition, Naomi Angell is a specialist in International adoption.  She is assisted by solicitor Anest Mathias. Naomi is chair of an adoption panel and lectures, writes and is involved with media work on domestic and international adoption. In our adoption casework we advise and represent adoptive parents, birth parents, children and other relatives.

Adoption from Care

In some circumstances, particularly where the family have been involved in social services or care proceedings, children are not able to carrying on living with their natural parents. The alternative can be adoption, when the natural parents will lose their parental responsibility for the child, and the full rights and duties of a parent are acquired by the adoptive family. These cases involve difficult and sensitive issues and the Osbornes adoption team has the knowledge and experience required.

Step Parent Adoption

Step parents may feel that it is in their step child’s best interests to be adopted, so that they are fully integrated into their new family.  Step parent adoption may be the best solution for a child, but there are also other options which we can advise on, which give the step parent legal status and recognition of their involvement with their step child, but enable the child’s relationship with the non-resident birth parent to continue.

International Adoption

This is a complex and highly specialist area of law.  The service that we offer ranges from:-

• General advice to families considering International Adoption, and bringing a child back to the UK.  Our clients include British families living here, ex-patriot British nationals wishing to return to the UK with their adopted child in the future, and foreign nationals (EU or non EU nationals) living in this country and wishing to adopt internationally while they are here.
• Advice on the duties and actions of local authorities or other adoption agencies here in relation to international adoptions.
• Representing adopters in adoption proceedings  in the courts in this country, where the foreign adoption is not recognised by the UK.
• Advising and representing families wishing to take a child out of the country for adoption elsewhere.
• Providing specialist legal opinions for lawyers or authorities either here or abroad on the law relating to international adoption in this country.

For more information visit http://www.osbornes.net/html/family_adoption.html or call at 020 7485 8811for a telephone consultation.

Adoption – New Law and Practice

Adoption – new law and practice -Domestic and Intercountry Adoption

21 March 2007

Intercountry Adoption (ICA) covers all adoptions with a foreign element, where the UK is either the receiving state, or the state of origin and sending state of the child.

Although often regarded as a specialist area of law covering a small number of cases and where practitioners are unlikely to encounter more than a few cases in the course of their career . Also where the ones that you do hear about are high profile cases which appear in the media e.g. Angelina Jolie or Madonna or notorious cases such as the “Internet Twins” case of 2002.

The reality is actually quite different. The cases in fact cover a wide range of situations and a broad spectrum of people, ranging from

• Childless couple wanting to adopt a young unrelated baby from abroad, maybe China or Russia.
• Expatriate single woman who wants to adopt a child while living and working abroad and then wants to bring the child back to the UK for recognition of the adoption and to obtain British nationality for the child.
• Relatives in this country wanting to adopt a child gifted to them by a family member abroad or to adopt an orphaned related child from a foreign country.
• A child brought here for a visit, maybe for education, medical treatment or a visit and relatives or an unrelated family decide to adopt the child.
• An English man marries a foreign woman and wants to adopt her child by a previous relationship abroad and for the child to live as a member of the family in this country.
• A child in care proceedings, where the best placement is a placement with relatives abroad.
• Family members in this country wanting to gift a child for adoption by childless relatives abroad.

The common factor is the foreign element when the UK can either be the
receiving country of the child or the country sending the child abroad where the UK is the child’s country of origin.

It is an area of law relevant to solicitors and barristers advising prospective adopters, and also birth families where the child is to be sent abroad. Also adoption social workers, childrens guardians and local authority legal departments, which are increasingly getting involved in these cases.

For further information contact Amanda Bradley.