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Family Law for Every Family

  • Representation for LGBTQ+ families, polyamorous and multi-partner households, families formed through assisted reproduction or known donors, and chosen families.

  • Legal planning to protect the family you have.

  • Representation when relationships change.

  • A practical, collaborative, and judgment-free approach.

  • Respect for your family structure, without needing it explained twice.

 

Multi-Parent Families

  • Planning for families raising children with three or more committed parents.

  • Work to secure each parent’s legal relationship with the child wherever the law allows, and build the strongest protections available elsewhere.

  • Court orders and judgments of parentage, including for families with more than two parents

  • Petitions to issue or amend birth certificates so they list every legal parent

  • Affidavits of parentage, consent-to-parent documents, and confirmatory filings for later-born children

  • Coordinating recognition of parentage orders when a family has ties to more than one state

  • Strategy before conception, so the legal plan is in place before a child arrives

 

Polyamorous and Multi-Partner Households

  • Agreements and planning for polyamorous, “V,” triad, and other multi-partner households.

  • Help documenting partners’ intentions and protecting one another where laws assume a household of two.

  • Relationship, cohabitation and co-parenting agreements, including how to handle a breakup

  • Plans for owning a home among three or more partners (for example, joint tenancy, trusts or entity ownership)

  • Wills, financial and health-care powers of attorney, advance directives and hospital visitation authorizations, so your partners, not just your relatives by default, can act for you

  • Guidance on how marriage between some members of a household affects taxes, benefits, inheritance and parental rights

  • Joint representation of several partners, with appropriate conflict waivers, when everyone’s goals line up

 

LGBTQ+ Families

  • Second-parent and confirmatory adoptions, which secure a parent’s rights even when their name is already on the birth certificate

  • Parentage actions and birth certificate corrections

  • Custody and parenting-time cases between same-sex co-parents, including cases with orders in more than one jurisdiction

  • Divorce, separation and mediation for same-sex spouses, including the division of pensions and retirement accounts (QDROs and domestic relations orders)

  • Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements

 

Assisted Reproduction and Known Donors

  • Building a family through IVF, reciprocal IVF, IUI or a known donor raises legal questions that are best answered early.

  • Drafting and reviewing known sperm and egg donor agreements

  • Advising intended parents on who is presumed to be a legal parent and how to confirm that status

  • Parentage petitions supported by clinic and medical documentation

 

Name and Gender Marker Changes

  • Legal name changes and decrees of legal gender identity for transgender and nonbinary clients.

  • Updates to identity documents and, where available, sealing of records to protect privacy.

 

When Relationships Change

  • Divorce, separation, custody, and support for every kind of family.

  • Mediation as a less adversarial way forward.

  • Attention to how earlier agreements and planning documents may affect a separation.

 

Beyond the Courtroom

  • I founded the Polyamory Bar Association, the network of attorneys who serve the non-monogamous across the United States.

  • Testimony on District of Columbia legislation on non-monogamy.

  • Continuing legal education presentations on representing nontraditional families.

  • National media and podcast interviews on family law outside the two-parent norm.

  • Ten years as a volunteer attorney with FreeState Justice, Maryland’s LGBTQ+ legal advocacy organization.

  • Monthly donor to OPEN (the Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy).

  • My published work on polyamorous families and the law includes:

  • A Whole Village: Polyamorous Families and the Best Interests of the Child Standard (with Elisabeth Sheff and Kimberly Rhoten), Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, Vol. 31, No. 2. This article uses empirical research on how children fare in polyamorous families to examine how courts apply the best-interests-of-the-child standard.

  • U.S. Family Law Along the Slippery Slope: The Limits of a Sexual Rights Strategy for Polyamorous Parents (with Kimberly Rhoten and Elisabeth Sheff), Sexualities (2021).

 

Let’s Talk

 

Contact Jonathan to Discuss Your Family

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  • Each family’s situation is different, and the law in this area keeps changing. If you are planning a family, protecting the one you have, or going through a change, I’d be glad to hear from you.

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JD Lane Law · 1629 K St. NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20006

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Attorney advertising. This page provides general information, not legal advice, and contacting me does not create an attorney-client relationship. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

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