30 Jun 2017 It’s A Book!
It’s finally out, in paper and in e-version! After three years of writing, rewriting, editing, proofreading and more of the same, as I was talking to potential intended parents in Shanghai and Taiwan a week ago, the book I co-wrote with colleague and fellow ART attorney Stephanie Brinkley was released.
As its title, “Developing A Successful Assisted Reproduction Technology Law Practice,” suggests, it’s not beach reading, unless you are an attorney thinking of going into fertility law. But I hope anyone interested in reproductive freedom and best practices for protecting the rights of children born via ART will relate to our motivations for writing it.
The American Bar Association approached us about writing the book because it receives so many questions from attorneys interested in learning more about this fascinating field of law and hungry for practical advice on how to get a foot in the door.
Stephanie and I have known one another and worked together for several years on the American Bar Association’s ART Committee of the Family Law Section, and I have watched Stephanie build a successful ART practice as an offshoot of her South Carolina family law practice. Stephanie’s experience and the tactics she developed to expand her practice are in many cases quite different from the environment in which I launched and built my Los Angeles firm, International Fertility Law Group. Because our practices are located in very different geographic, legal social and cultural environments, we were the perfect writing partners – me to discuss setting up practice in an urban, coastal city with established laws governing ART and parentage, Stephanie to write about starting an ART practice in a region where fertility law is still evolving, and where there are few attorneys well versed on assisted reproduction legal issues.
In writing the book, Stephanie and I were able to share with our peers our deep passion for fertility law and our commitment to ensuring that the intended parents and children born via ART enjoy the same legal rights as other families and children. ART law is perhaps more collaborative than any other field of law; in many cases ART attorneys are called on to work with judges and local authorities to come up with solutions that put children’s interests first. It is exciting, rewarding work in a field that is evolving as quickly as the technology that makes it possible. If this book persuades dedicated, talented attorneys to get into a field of law where they can help shape the future, Stephanie and I will have done our job.
“Developing A Successful Assisted Reproduction Technology Law Practice” by Richard B. Vaughn and Stephanie M. Brinkley is published by ABA Publishing. If you are an attorney or have an interest in setting up an ART legal practice, you can find the book here: https://shop.americanbar.org/eBus/Store/ProductDetails.aspx?productId=276970456&.
