UPDATE: With the passage of the Massachusetts Parentage Act, the definitions of legal parentage have been updated by the legislature.  Read this article to learn more: The Massachusetts Parentage Act by Polly Crozier, Director of Family Advocacy, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders Original Post: About a year ago we posted a series entitled Who is a Legal Parent? and addressed the many ways in which a parent (someone who takes care of a child) can also be considered a legal parent (someone who the court recognizes has rights and obligations relating to the care of a child).   In the Venn Diagram to the left you can see that these two categories overlap but not everyone who is a legal parent acts like a parent, and not everyone who acts like a parent is recognized as a legal parent. Today, the Massachusetts SJC expanded the purple section of this diagram, recognizing that a non-biological parent who "jointly with the mother, received the child into their home and openly ...

UPDATE: With the passage of the Massachusetts Parentage Act, the definitions of legal parentage have been updated by the legislature.  Read this article to learn more:  The Massachusetts Parentage Act by Polly Crozier, Director of Family Advocacy, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders Original Post: A Guardian is a person appointed by the court to make non-financial decisions for another person, such as personal welfare, medical, housing and educational decisions, in the same way that a parent can for their minor child. Guardians may be appointed for minor children, via Guardianship of a Minor, and for incapacitated persons, via Guardianship of an Incapacitated Person. In either case, this is a guardianship for protection of the person only. In Massachusetts, Guardians do not have any power over the financial or business affairs of the Respondent. In order to protect the proper or business affairs of a respondent a Conservator is needed. Guardians and Conservators do ...

UPDATE: With the passage of the Massachusetts Parentage Act, the definitions of legal parentage have been updated by the legislature.  Read this article to learn more:  The Massachusetts Parentage Act by Polly Crozier, Director of Family Advocacy, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders Original Post: Our previous posts in this series have all addressed legal parental rights created or enabled by statute.  In some instances, though, the Probate and Family Court has extended legal parentage rights beyond the statutory rights.  The Massachusetts Appeals Court case E.N.O. v. L.L.M . defined a de facto parent as: “one who has no biological relation to the child, but has participated in the child’s life as a member of the child’s family. The de facto parent resides with the child and, with the consent and encouragement of the legal parent, performs a share of caretaking functions at least as great as the legal parent.”  E.N.O. v. L.L.M. (1999) The decision of...

UPDATE: With the passage of the Massachusetts Parentage Act, the definitions of legal parentage have been updated by the legislature.  Read this article to learn more:  The Massachusetts Parentage Act by Polly Crozier, Director of Family Advocacy, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders Original Post: Post by Julie Tolek .  Julie is an Associate at Skylark Law & Mediation, PC and runs her own practice, Think Pink Law.  Julie's practice includes family law & divorce representation, firearms licensing & NFA trusts, estate planning & probate, and adoptions. Three's Company:  Three Parent Adoptions When most people think of legal parenthood, they probably think of it as a single or joint endeavor with another person. An often overlooked but equally legal option is to have more than two legal parents. In situations in which there are more than two people who would like to care for a child and have legal parental rights, a three parent adoptio...

UPDATE: With the passage of the Massachusetts Parentage Act, the definitions of legal parentage have been updated by the legislature.  Read this article to learn more:  The Massachusetts Parentage Act by Polly Crozier, Director of Family Advocacy, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders Original Post: Guest Post by Joyce Kauffman and Patience Crozier  both of Kauffman Crozier LLP .  In addition to an extensive divorce and traditional family law practice, Joyce's practice focuses on issues impacting the LGBTQ community.  Patience is a principal of Kauffman Crozier LLP who focuses on all areas of family law, particularly adoption, divorce, dissolution, prenuptial agreements, domestic partnership agreements, assisted reproductive technology, paternity and guardianship. Co-Parent Adoption In 1993, the SJC determined that same-sex couples can jointly adopt children in Massachusetts.   Adoption of Tammy .  Since then, thousands of children ha...

UPDATE: With the passage of the Massachusetts Parentage Act, the definitions of legal parentage have been updated by the legislature.  Read this article to learn more:  The Massachusetts Parentage Act by Polly Crozier, Director of Family Advocacy, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders Original Post: Post by Julie Tolek .  Julie is an Associate at Skylark Law & Mediation, PC and runs her own practice, Think Pink Law.  Julie's practice includes family law & divorce representation, firearms licensing & NFA trusts, estate planning & probate, and adoptions. Adoption Adoption is the process by which one person becomes a parent by legally agreeing to care for another person’s biological child and to raise the child as his or her own biological child.  The adoptive parent acquires the legal rights and obligations of parentage including the legal rights to make decision about every aspect of the child's health and happiness. The Adoption Proc...

UPDATE: With the passage of the Massachusetts Parentage Act, the definitions of legal parentage have been updated by the legislature.  Read this article to learn more:  The Massachusetts Parentage Act by Polly Crozier, Director of Family Advocacy, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders Original Post: Many have tried to frame the debate over same-sex marriage or LGBT rights to be a debate over the changing definition of parents and family.  But the truth is that the definition of family has been constantly changing and evolving and the definition of a parent has always differed from family to family.  Some people are raised by a male and female parent, and others are raised by a grandparent, or one parent, or two female or two male parents.  And many children have more than two people that function as parents and role models. The definition of biological parent is clear; requiring a male and female genetic component to create a child.  However, definin...

One of my favorite NSFW musicals is Avenue Q , where the main character (a puppet / liberal arts graduate), spends most of the story  trying to find his purpose in life.  I think it strikes a chord with me because I am constantly re-examining whether my work reflects my values.  When Attorney Trask left Kelsey & Trask, P.C. last year, I was given an opportunity to reconsider how this firm reflected what I, personally, found most important. Throughout the last year, that self-reflection has resulted in some changes that helped us focus more on our dispute resolution work and resulted in the creation of Skylark Law & Mediation, P.C. - where we help families resolve conflict. That has become the central theme of our work and with that focus we have removed some practice areas and added others, and we have grown our staff to cover those new practice areas. First, what have we removed?  Skylark Law & Mediation, P.C. will no longer be handling bankrup...

Guest Post by Beth Aarons , a Mediator and Collaboratively trained attorney who is of counsel to Skylark Law & Mediation, PC and who also has her own practice in Newtonville .  Beth is available for consultation on adoptions , like the one discussed below: In a recent slip opinion Adoption of a Minor, SJC-11797 , the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) determined that a known sperm donor of a child born to a married same-sex couple is not a legal parent of the child who would be entitled to notice of the child’s adoption. J.S. and V.K., two women legally married to each other, conceived a child through artificial insemination with a known sperm donor.  The child’s birth certificate names J.S. and V.K. as the legal parents and to protect their rights they sought to jointly adopt their son to ensure equal recognition of their parentage outside of Massachusetts.  The Probate and Family Court declined to allow the adoption to proceed absent legal notice to t...

Whether or not everyone approves, it is a fact of life that the "traditional nuclear family" is becoming less the norm. In the practice of family law we are encountering more and more unique family structures; some brought on by the advance of technology (like artificial insemination or surrogate parenthood), some brought on by divorce and re-marriage creating step or second families, and some brought on by the changing laws around gay marriage and adoption. There are situations in the law in which the Courts have already dealt with the issue of whether a non-biological parent could be a "Parent" as well. For instance, in Massachusetts there is a Grandparent Visitation Statute that provides for visitation for grandparents with their grandchildren if they have been significantly involved in the children's lives. Although this standard is strictly applied by the Courts, a win on a grandparent visitation case is essentially a recognition that a child's gra...