About Joyce Kauffman

Attorney Kauffman has practiced family law for the past thirty years in the areas of divorce, guardianship, adoption, mediation, and reproductive technology. Throughout, she has maintained a special focus on issues impacting the LGBTQ community in the areas of LGBTQ adoption, relationship recognition, and parentage. At present, Attorney Kauffman’s practice is exclusively in the area of adoption, including co-parent adoption, stepparent adoption, adult adoption, and multiple-parent adoption. Shortly after graduating from law school in 1992, she was on brief in Adoption of Tammy, the case that secured the right for same-sex couples to adopt in Massachusetts. In addition to several hundred co-parent adoptions in the intervening years, Attorney Kauffman has successfully obtained three-parent adoptions for a number of LGBTQ families. She also represented the first lesbian couple in Massachusetts to obtain a birth certificate upon the birth of a child who had been conceived through IVF, using the eggs of one and born to the other. Since the legalization of same-sex marriage in the Goodridge decision, Attorney Kauffman has represented numerous individuals in the preparation of prenuptial and postnuptial agreements as well as in same-sex divorces. Attorney Kauffman is a trained mediator, collaborative lawyer, coach, and conciliator. Her background in child development and counseling psychology, in combination with her extensive family law experience, makes her uniquely qualified to serve all types of families. Attorney Kauffman is a frequent presenter at continuing legal education seminars and conferences. She has published a number of articles concerning the legal rights of LGBT families.  Attorney Kauffman was recently inducted to the inaugural class of the Lawyers Weekly Hall of Fame (2023).