Adoption

North Carolina Adoption Attorneys

The adoption law group at Herring Mills & Kratt PLLC, includes two attorneys and staff with more than fifteen years of experience in family law and adoption. Both attorneys are Board Certified Specialists in Family Law. Parker Herring is an adoptive mother and an experienced adoption attorney. Bobby Mills is a distinguished adoption lawyer and a member of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys.

Our adoption law group places a special focus on interstate adoption affected by the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC). Two of our Board Certified family law attorneys co-direct a licensed North Carolina adoption agency A Child's Hope (ACH), a licensed North Carolina adoption agency that offers personalized services to birth parents and adoptive parents and focuses on placing North Carolina newborns with North Carolina adoptive parents. For more information, find ACH’s listing in the Adoption Guide 2007 from “Adoptive Families” Magazine.

ACH provides a full range of adoption services:

  • Adoption process counseling
  • Pre-placement assessments (Home studies)
  • Domestic Adoptive Placements
  • Post-placement supervision

Adoption Services

Our adoption practice lawyers provide adoption services in a wide variety of adoption related matters such as:

  • Independent adoptions
  • Agency adoptions
  • Relative (stepparent) adoptions
  • Termination of Parental Rights actions
  • Contested adoptions
  • Surrogacy issues

We Are Serious about Adoption Services

Parker Herring and Bobby D. Mills are also co-founders of Friends of Adoption, a nonprofit corporation founded to raise awareness and promote discussion of adoption issues under North Carolina law. The focus is to identify adoption issues in North Carolina for modification by the North Carolina General Assembly.

Friends of Adoption was successful in lobbying for legislative changes that make it easier to adopt children in North Carolina such as:

  • The period for birthparents to revoke their consents to adoption has been changed from 21 days to 7 days;
  • Birthparents and adoptive parents in agency placements are now permitted to exchange identifying information so that they can have an open adoption if they choose to;
  • Adoptive couples who have completed pre-placement assessments will be permitted to advertise in a public medium in North Carolina, indicating they will accept a child for adoption.

Stepparent and Grandparent Adoptions

The adoption group at Herring Mills & Kratt PLLC, can help you with all of your stepparent and grandparent adoption needs. More frequently, stepparents in second marriages are recognizing the financial, legal, and emotional importance of adopting stepchildren in order to become a cohesive family unit. Grandparent adoptions are also increasing as 1)grandparents fight for rights to provide for the care and support of grandchildren from their own children's divorces, and 2) the adoption of grandchildren provides financial support and health insurance otherwise unavailable to grandparent caretakers.

Learn more at our Adoptions Practice Center

Contact the adoption law firm of Herring Mills & Kratt PLLC, in Raleigh, to schedule an opportunity to meet with Parker Herring or Bobby Mills about your interstate or international adoption needs.


Herring Mills & Kratt PLLC   Two Hannover Square, Suite 1860  Raleigh, NC 27601   919.821.1860  fax 919.821.1816
  • E. Parker Herring 1
  • Bobby D. Mills 1,2
  • E. William Kratt 3
  • Mary Ann Dalton 4,6
  • Kelly E. Thompson
  • Heath Dedmond
  • James P. West 7
  • Amanda M. Baxley
  • Donna A. Hart
  • 1 Board Certified Specialist in Family Law
  • 2 Member American Academy of Adoption Attorneys
  • 3 Board Certified Specialist in Estate Planning and Probate Law
  • 4 Member National Academy Elder Law Attorneys
  • 5 DRC – Certified Family Financial Mediator
  • 6 DRC – Certified Estate & Guardianship Mediator
  • 7 Of Counsel

The Raleigh, North Carolina, law firm of Herring Mills & Kratt PLLC, serves residents and businesses throughout central North Carolina, including communities such as Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary, Wake Forest, Apex, Morrisville, Holly Springs, Clayton, Pittsboro, Sanford, Smithfield, Southern Pines, Pinehurst, Greenville, Wilson, Rocky Mount, and Research Triangle Park (RTP), North Carolina.

Wake County • Durham County •Orange County • Chatham County • Lee County • Harnett County
• Johnston County • Moore County • Wilson County • Pitt County • Nash County

FirmSite® by FindLaw, a Thomson Reuters business.