Legal Question in Family Law in Virginia

my son is in a Va prison for a non violent crime. He is to be released in Jan 2014. His eight year old son's mother called me today and wants her boyfriend to adopt this child. I pay the child support to her each month and have the child every other weekend and the child visits his father in prison about every 3 months, receives letter regularly, and talks to him on the phone. The boyfriend is spending the next 6 weekends in jail for a dwi and neither one work. They have totalled 4 cars since Christmas and is now sueing the last person they hit. Can they have my sons paternial rights terminated because he is in until 2014. They seem to think they can do a TEMPORARY ADOPTION and change his name and have it reversed when my son gets out. Can this be done?


Asked on 2/23/10, 1:39 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Michael Hendrickson Law Office Michael E. Hendrickson

No, the proposal for a "temporary adoption" is little more than a legal scam;

adoptions are generally considered permanent and certainly not temporary.

Nevertheless, if this twosome intends to proceed, your son will

need an attorney to represent him while he is incarcerated, and, if and when

adoption papers are filed with the court, your son should then request that a special counsel known as a committee (or whatever the name in use is for this kind of attorney at the time ) should be appointed by the court to represent him.

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Answered on 2/28/10, 2:55 pm


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