Recommended Citation

Lisa Kelly, West Virginia's Adoption Statute: A History of a Work in Progress, 102 W. Va. L. Rev. 1 (1999), https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/faculty-articles/316

Authors

Lisa Kelly, University of Washington School of LawFollow

West Virginia's Adoption Statute: A History of a Work in Progress

Publication Title

West Virginia Law Review

Keywords

adoption, West Virginia

Document Type

Article

Abstract

More than two years have passed since the Legislature reformed West Virginia's adoption statute. The goal of this article is to provide a kind of legislative history to deepen the reader's understanding of the current statute. This history will include an explanation of the West Virginia Law Institute's Proposal, as well as the Legislature's reaction to it. In Part II, I will detail this history. In Part III, I will explain the operation of the current statute, with mention of the few recent adoption decisions that have construed various provisions. In Part IV, I will look at some of the problems caused by the hurried redraft of certain portions of the statute in the closing hours of the 1997 legislative session.