Elizabeth Schwartz 2 posts 0 comments

Elizabeth F. Schwartz has been practicing law since 1997 and is a nationally recognized advocate for the legal rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.  She is the author of the book "Before I Do: A Legal Guide to Marriage, Gay and Otherwise" (The New Press, 2015).  While her Miami-based firm works with all clients in matters of family formation (insemination, adoption, and surrogacy, as well as nuptial agreements) and dissolution, estate planning and probate, she has been on the forefront of providing crucial legal protections for LGBT+ families before and since the arrival of marriage equality, including name and gender marker changes for trans and nonbinary individuals.  She lectures locally, nationally, and internationally about critical topics including the impact of nationwide marriage equality and the continued importance of LGBT couples protecting their loved ones through estate planning, stepparent and second parent adoption.  She focuses her practice in family formation (adoption, insemination, and surrogacy) and dissolution, and handled the first divorce for a same-sex couple in Florida.

Elizabeth is board certified by the Florida Bar in Adoption Law, is a fellow of the Academy of Adoption & Assisted Reproduction Attorneys and the Florida Adoption Council, and serves as an adoption intermediary helping make forever families of all kids.  Elizabeth has handled surrogacy for almost 20 years, assisting intended parents, gestational carriers and egg and sperm donors with their legal needs.  She is the author of "LGBT Issues in Surrogacy" in the Handbook of Gestational Surrogacy, ed. E. Scott Sills (Cambridge University Press, 2016).