Jeffrey Johnson is a legal writer with a focus on personal injury. He has worked on personal injury and sovereign immunity litigation in addition to experience in family, estate, and criminal law. He earned a J.D. from the University of Baltimore and has worked in legal offices and non-profits in Maryland, Texas, and North Carolina. He has also earned an MFA in screenwriting from Chapman Univer...

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UPDATED: May 2, 2012

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Once a formal adoption has been finalized, the records of the adoption become sealed to maintain anonymity of the natural and adoptive parents. Access is only by court order and is carefully restricted. Many states are relaxing procedures for opening records for “good cause,” say, for example, obtaining medical data.

Some states now allow adults, who were adopted during their minority, to request that the natural parents be contacted by a third party, in order to determine whether they would consent to allow their natural child to re-establish contact (this is called mutual consent between the child and the natural parent before opening the record to the child).