Our lawyers here can help you structure your gestational carrier agreement with your gestational surrogate, egg donor or sperm donor to protect your parental rights. Our attorneys are admitted in Maryland, Virginia and/or the District of Columbia, and we understand how and why problems arise in this area of the law. We design gestational surrogate and donor contracts to avoid legal problems and to protect the parties to the contract.

For clients desiring to match with a gestational carrier privately, we will provide advice and guidance on advertising and searching gestational surrogate. We will answer questions about vetting and addressing legal issues prior to agreeing to a match. Our firm does not match intended parents and gestational carriers.  Private searching requires that you actively search for a gestational carrier through networking and advertising while we provide consulting advice. Once matched, we will provide you with independent legal representation. 

Together, our lawyers have the experience to protect your legal rights and relationships by preparing and negotiating a comprehensive set of legal agreements with your gestational surrogate and/or your donor. The agreement will detail the parties’ rights, obligations, intentions and expectations. Specifically, the agreement will address parental rights, custody, choice of hospital for delivery, post-birth contact between the parties, and health insurance. The agreement will also cover who makes medical decisions and how those decisions will be made during a pregnancy; payment of medical bills; liability for medical complications; financial considerations, such as the gestational carrier's/surrogate’s compensation; and expenses, including lost wages, legal fees, child care, housekeeping, and maternity clothes, and coverage for life insurance. It will include such matters as the need to provide medical history and personal medical information, continued contact through the process, and the intended parents’ presence during doctor visits and the delivery.

We will be your advocates in this rapidly developing area of the law to enable you to better understand the relevant factors and make the complicated decisions that will arise throughout the process. As part of the process, if you request, we will work with the staff at the hospital at which the gestational surrogate is to deliver to ensure a smooth process. Together, we will devise a legal strategy that best fits your needs, such as preparing a petition for declaration of parentage requesting a court order recognizing your rights as the legal parents and terminating any presumed parental rights of the gestational surrogate as allowed by the jurisdiction where the gestational carrier delivers the child.