Mark Eckman devotes his professional practice to family formation. He combines his experience in family law and immigration law. He is recognized as an expert in legal matters involving these two fields. As an advocate of adoption he represents traditional married couples as well as single men and women. He is equally adept at representing biological parents. As an advocate of surrogacy, he represents intended parents, gestational carriers and surrogates. He supports the formation of families, both traditional and non-traditional.

Mark Eckman is a nationally recognized expert on the status of adopted aliens, an area in which he combines his experience in immigration law and family law.  As an advocate of surrogacy he has represented intended parents, gestational carriers and surrogates.  Mr. Eckman is a zealous proponent of adoptions and surrogacies by single men and women, and supports family building by both traditional and non-traditional families.

A founding member of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, Mr. Eckman holds membership in the Joint Council on International Children’s Services (the principal trade association representing US adoption agencies), the Maryland Coalition for Adoption, and the Virginia Association of Licensed Child Placement Agencies.

He is  a competent, compassionate and experienced attorney who will listen to your concerns and your family formation goals.  He will sit down with you and help you decide:

• Should I adopt?
• Should I pursue a surrogacy?
• What budget should I anticipate?
• How do I finance my plan to form—or add to—my family?
• What timeframe should I anticipate?
• What plans do I need to make ?
• What will it be like to add a child to my home?
• What challenges and rewards will a child bring to me?

He is accessible:

• If he is not available, your call will be answered by a competent assistant.
• He will return your call or email within 24 hours, usually faster.
• He might speak your language.  Aside from English, he is fluent in Spanish, German, French, Italian, and Hebrew.

He believes that all sorts of people can be good parents:  traditional married couples, single men and women, gay and lesbian couples and singles, persons over traditional child-rearing age, persons living in the United States, persons living outside the United States.  The common denominator of his clientele?  They want to form a family!

His adoption and surrogacy fees are modest when compared with other adoption and surrogacy resources, without any sacrifice to quality of work product.   Mark Eckman knows that becoming a parent through adoption or surrogacy is not inexpensive:  He is willing to provide his services “below market” so that you can reach your goal.

He is experienced both in private placement adoptions and in agency adoptions, both domestic and inter-country.

He remains abreast of the current trends in assisted reproduction.

He is willing to manage your entire case, or just a part of it.  In other words, you might retain Mark Eckman in order to review a proposed surrogacy agreement, but nothing more.  You might hire him to represent a biological parent in an adoption.  You might ask him to supervise the paperwork to obtain permission for a child to travel to another state for adoption.  In short, he is willing to carry out whatever task you wish to entrust to him.

Mark Eckman's Credentials:

Mark Eckman was a co-founder of The Datz Foundation in 1987.  He already had considerable experience in adoption, both as a facilitator based in Europe and as attorney specializing in adoption law.
Mark Eckman did his undergraduate work at Cornell University and after long interludes in Tunis, Cairo, and Jerusalem, he earned a Masters in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago.  He then settled in Barcelona, Spain, where he ran a series of businesses, and first entered the field of adoption, facilitating the adoption of Latin American children by European families.  Following the death of Franco and the subsequent disorientation of the Spanish economy, Mark Eckman relocated to Germany, where he continued facilitating Latin American placements.

After returning to the United States, Mr. Eckman enrolled in Catholic University Law School in Washington, DC, earning his JD in 1984.  A member of the DC and VA Bars, he has maintained a private practice devoted to adoption and custody issues, as well as immigration law.  Over the past twenty years he has represented all three sides of the adoption triad: biological parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees.  In addition, he is frequently retained in contested and agreed custody matters, cases of abuse and neglect, and of course, all manner of adoption matters. Mr. Eckman occasionally accepts Guardian ad Litem appointments, and in 2004 was named Guardian of the Year by the Fairfax County Center for Special Advocates.

Mark Eckman lives in Vienna, Virginia with his wife Vivian Datoff and their sons Andrew and Scott.  When asked to summarize his world view, he immediately quoted Oscar Wilde, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."