127 N.J.L.J. 166
January 24, 1991
OPINION 648
Office Space Shared With
Private Adoption Agency
In Opinion 498, 109 N.J.L.J. 425 (1982), in which two prior
opinions [Opinion 129, 91 N.J.L.J. 365 (1968) and Opinion 433, 104
N.J.L.J. 204 (1979)] were overruled, this Committee considered two
separate factual situations. The first involved a two lawyer
partnership with whom a third unassociated lawyer shared office
space. The building where they practiced contained other offices
and retail space. Their offices had a common entrance and waiting
room and two secretaries. It was held that the third lawyer's son
could rent a room from which to conduct his mortgage business where
he had his own telephone and a secretary who shared space with the
lawyers' secretaries.
In the other situation considered in Opinion 498, supra, 109
N.J.L.J. 425, a single practitioner shared office space with a
certified life underwriter (CLU). Each had his own office,
telephone and secretaries who shared a common waiting room. The
common entrance door had signs identifying one individual as an
attorney and the other as a CLU. That arrangement was approved as
being proper.
In both situations, the Committee emphasized that care should
be taken to maintain the separate practices and identities of the
businesses and professions involved and that confidences of the
attorneys' clients be preserved.
Inquirer here relies upon Opinion 498, supra, 109 N.J.L.J.
425, as support for his proposed arrangement. He is an attorney who
has recently been admitted to the New Jersey Bar although he has
been a practicing attorney in Pennsylvania for some time. In that
state he engaged in a general practice with an emphasis on
adoptions. His work entailed representing a private adoption agency
and other persons in private adoption matters. He asserts:
In those matters, I represent the Agency, and
not the biological parents or adoptive
parents. After the termination of rights is
complete in an Agency case, the adoptive
parents obtain an attorney to represent them
with regard to the adoption part of their
case. On occasion, they elect to use my
services as their attorney, after written
notice to them of the potential for a conflict
of interest. Sometimes they choose to use my
services, and sometimes they use another.
He and the same agency desire to open a shared office in New
Jersey in what is known as an executive office arrangement. In this
arrangement, individual businesses or professionals rent separate
units with a common lobby, waiting area, receptionist and door.
Each office has its own phone line and sign outside the common
door. The single receptionist tends to all phone lines, keeping
calls separate.
He proposes to jointly rent one room in the building with the
agency, in which room there would be separate locked filing
cabinets and neutral furnishings and wall hangings so that there
would be no evidence that one shared the office with the other. He
would "seldom, if ever, share the office" at the same time as the
agency. Outside the office door there would either be two office
placards, one on each side of the door, or one sign placard which
could be exchanged or reversed, apparently depending upon who was
using the office at the time.
Inquirer further states that there might be occasions when the
agency, in which he has no financial interest, would refer a client
seeking private adoption or he might refer clients to the agency.
Beyond the issue of "solicitation or steering" [see Opinion
518, 111 N.J.L.J. 513 (1983)], the concern of the Committee focuses
upon the adoption procedures designed by the legislature to protect
the interests of the State of New Jersey and all interested
parties, particularly the child involved; N.J.S.A. 9:3-37, et seq.
The statute, among other things, mandates that placement for
adoption may be made only by a parent, guardian or an approved
agency. N.J.S.A. 9:3-39 and 40. Further, N.J.S.A. 9:3-41.1 provides
as follows:
Surrender of child to agency; provision of
available information on child's development
to prospective parent.
Any approved agency making an investigation of
the facts and circumstances surrounding the
surrender of a child shall provide a
prospective parent with all available
information relevant to the child's de
velopment, including his developmental and
medical history, personality and temperament,
the parents' complete medical histories,
including conditions or diseases which are
believed to be hereditary, any drugs or
medications taken during pregnancy and any
other conditions of the parents' health which
may be a factor influencing the child's
present or future health. Such information
shall be made available to the prospective
parent prior to the actual adoptive placement
in the case of a placement made by an approved
agency, or upon the completion of an
investigation conducted by an approved agency
pursuant to section 12 of P.L. 1977, c. 367
(C.9:3-48).
b. The available information required of an
approved agency by subsection a. of this
section shall be presented to the adoptive
parents on standardized forms prepared by the
Commissioner of Human Services.
L. 1979, c. 292, § 1
The scheme fashioned by the legislature was intended to
prevent subterfuge, kickbacks and, in short, baby selling. It also
was intended to assure that biological and adopting parents acted
freely and voluntarily and that they were fully knowledgeable and
advised.
The proposal here obviously could lead the parties to the easy
conclusion that the attorney had influence over the agency which is
charged with the responsibility of providing independent and
objective investigations. Also, abuse of the system might be
facilitated. Indeed, the very nature of the use of the same
facility as proposed could lead a reasonable member of the general
public to the conclusion that there was some inherent impropriety
involved, whether or not so. Because of these concerns and others,
the Committee is of the opinion that the proposed arrangement is
improper and, therefore, cannot sanction it.