The Adoption and Child Welfare Lawsite is uniquely designed to assist lay persons as well as adoption and child welfare professionals, lawyers and juvenile and family court judges. The Lawsite has several features that provide non-legal adoption and child welfare professionals access to the latest and most complete adoption and child welfare law-related information. Such features include guided searches of state and federal statutes, significant state and federal cases, legal articles and synopsis of publications in related non-legal professional journals on matters involving adoption and child welfare law.

To make the Lawsite user-friendly to non-legal professionals, the Lawsite contains plain English summaries of the legal material included in the database. Additionally, you will find helpful and informative postings on adoption and child welfare news and events and recent significant legal decisions highlighted on the home page.

You will find the Adoption and Child Welfare Lawsite is easy to use – simply type in your search terms in the provided keyword search box or select a suggested adoption or child welfare legal topic from the drop-down search boxes to begin your search. You can narrow your results by restricting your search to a particular state or federal jurisdiction. Plain English summaries of the legal material retrieved in your search are provided in addition to a downloadable version of the full text documents.

In addition to the information contained on the Lawsite, the National Center for Adoption Law and Policy provides various training and educational services for adoption and child welfare professionals. Such services include a bi-annual national symposium on issues related to adoption and child welfare practice; the Summer Adoption Law Institute; a weekly e-newsletter containing news updates and recent case summaries; the Wells Conference on Adoption Law; and various CEU programs. For more information about these educational services, click here.

While the Adoption and Child Welfare Lawsite is meant to inform, to educate and to provide access to adoption and child welfare related law, it is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional legal representation and independent legal research. For specific legal advice, you should consult an attorney who specializes in this area. For a referral to adoption and child welfare legal practioners, please contact the National Center for Adoption Law and Policy.