Adoptions are generally the happiest cases in family law. While other major categories of family law, such as divorce and child custody, have the potential to lead happiness for clients at the end of their case, adoptions are positive for clients throughout the legal process. Although many adoptive parents consider children in their physical custody as their legal children, that assumption is incorrect if they have not gone through the official adoption process. Adoptions are important for both the adoptive parents and their children, because they establish the legal relationship between the parties. This legal relationship includes the adoptive children becoming heirs to the adoptive parent’s estate, as well as allowing the adoptive children the opportunity to change their legal name in accordance with their adoptive parent’s name. However, the most important right that adoptions create for parents and their children, is the opportunity to disestablish the biological parent’s rights. Until a legal adoption has occurred, the biological mother or father might have a say in the child’s life. By completing the adoption process in Tennessee, the biological parent’s rights are terminated, and the adoptive parents become the legal parents to their adoptive children.
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