Art. 1233 Final decree at first hearing

This rule explains when a judge can finalize a private adoption right away, at the very first court hearing. Normally, adoptions go through an extra step first, called an interlocutory decree, which is like a trial period before the adoption becomes permanent. This rule allows the judge to skip that step in certain cases.

For the judge to skip straight to a final adoption decree, two things must be true. First, the birth parents' legal rights to the child must have already been ended through the proper legal process described elsewhere in this code. Second, the child must have already been living in the adoptive parents' home for at least six months before the hearing.

The judge still has to look at the same factors used in other adoption decisions before making this choice. This rule basically speeds up the adoption process for families who have already met these requirements, so they do not have to wait through an extra interlocutory period when the child has already been settled in their home for a good amount of time.