by Kathy Para
JBA Pro Bono Committee Chair
When Michael Shorstein began practicing adoption law 20 years ago, most people didn’t even need an attorney to take the necessary legal steps to adopt.
“Back then, people could just fill out the forms themselves,” he recalls.
Since then, however, Florida’s adoption law has grown increasingly complex, and pro se adoption forms are a relic of the past. And while that complexity has proven to be a good thing for an attorney who wanted to make a living in adoption law, it was not so fortunate for low-income people seeking to adopt.
Shorstein was certainly one attorney who benefitted from the increasing complexity of adoption law, but pricing the process out of the reach of low-income persons and making adoption more about money than heart didn’t sit well with the young attorney.
Like many attorneys, he says, “I just have a need for things to be fair. It’s why I, and most attorneys, go into the law in the first place.”
So, while happy to make a living doing something he loves, Shorstein had to find a way to make that living and feel good about it at the same time.
The solution: pro bono.
Doing his part to ensure that it is the heart that decides whether an adoption takes place, and not financial wealth, Shorstein began to take on all the pro bono adoption cases he could possibly handle through Jacksonville Area Legal Aid (JALA). That sense of fairness, and his longtime devotion to pro bono adoption law, has made Michael Shorstein an easy selection for JALA’s February Pro Bono Attorney of the Month.
“Michael Shorstein seems to accept every single adoption case that we send to him,” says Sarah Fowler of Pro Bono JALA. “He truly cares about making sure the adoption process is open to everyone, regardless of financial considerations.”
Shorstein says the increased complexity of adoption law did not happen simply to take the process out of the pro se realm.
“The law became more complex because society demanded it,” he says. “Today, people’s rights are being protected a lot more carefully than back then.”
One of the factors that weighs heavily today but was not so important 20 years ago is the area of fathers’ rights.
“The increased complexity just means the law is now ensuring that the rights of all parties are taken into consideration,” said Shorstein.
The law firm of Shorstein & Kelly is committed to protecting those rights and helping create new families.
“Adoption law is one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me,” says Shorstein, who runs Northeast Florida’s largest adoption law practice with longtime partner Brian Kelly.
The firm has offices in Jacksonville and Daytona Beach. While the practice had been split between criminal defense and adoption for most of its 19 years, Kelly recently gave up the last of his criminal practice to join his partner in focusing solely on adoption.
“It really is one of the greatest jobs in the world,” Shorstein says. “We get to help create families. It’s a terrific feeling.”
Shorstein entered the legal profession in 1985. He spent the first few years of his career working for a sports agent and practicing in his uncle’s Jacksonville practice. It wasn’t until 1989, just before his uncle, Harry Shorstein, was appointed State Attorney in Jacksonville, that the younger Shorstein discovered adoption law. “With Uncle Harry’s appointment, I went to work for another firm, Harris Guidi, and that’s where I did my first adoption. Basically, I just placed an ad in the paper for a birth mother seeking parents for her child,” he said.
That was enough to hook Shorstein.
“It was just a very satisfying experience. And no one in Jacksonville was doing it,” he added.
In 1992, Shorstein & Kelly was born.
“There were only about 100 adoption attorneys in the entire country with about five full-time adoption attorneys in Florida,” said Shorstein.
Today, there are more than 400 in the country and over 20 in the State of Florida, and Shorstein is at the forefront of the specialty. In 2004, he won JALA’s Equal Justice Award for Adoption Pro Bono Services, and in 2005 the Congressional Coalition Adoption Institute named him one of the Congressional “Angels in Adoption.” He is AV rated by Martindale-Hubbell, a member of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, and has taught adoption law at Florida Coastal School of Law. Recently, the University of Florida undergrad and Florida State Law School graduate was selected to be the first chairman of the newly created State of Florida Adoption Law Certification Program. The nine-member committee has been charged with writing the policies and creating the first examination to make adoption law the next board-certified specialty in the state.
“Now,” Shorstein says, “the public will be able to differentiate between a real, certified adoption lawyer and another attorney who has not studied the topic.”
A somewhat ironic scenario that, 20 years ago, might have kept Shorstein, himself, from accidentally discovering the area of law that he now loves so much. But irony aside, he says, “The field has become a lot more complicated since I first started. This move protects the public from possible legal errors that could prove disastrous for children and families.”
Shorstein resides in the Jacksonville area with his wife, Robin, and their two children, Mathew and Benay.
Local attorneys interested in assisting with pro bono services at JALA can contact Pro Bono Coordinator Kathy Para at [email protected] or 356-8371, ext. 363.