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Workin’ 9-5 With an Escrow Agent

July 8, 2020 | By:

My good friends at Private Label Surrogacy recently asked me to help educate their prospective clients and gestational carriers about escrow agents.  What is it that escrow agents do and why is it important? 

Trust me that you don’t really want me to tell you the specific ins and outs of my day at Stork Escrow unless you want to fall asleep from boredom in the next few minutes.  My life as an escrow agent “workin’ 9-5, what a way to make a livin’” (as Dolly sings it), is not the subject of this blog, nor should it be the subject of any blog because “it’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it”. 

Fortunately for those reading this blog, it turns out the question was more general than asking about the specifics of what I do while I’m ‘waitin’ for the day my ship’ll come in.”  Among other questions (which I will address in another part of this blog series), my friends at PLS wanted to know what the difference is between fund managers and escrow agents and when and why you need to hire one of us. 

Well then, let me discuss “my service and devotion” . . . .

Nomenclature aside, escrow agents and fund managers are (or should be) the same thing: people or companies who are responsible for holding and distributing the money needed for surrogacy and egg donation arrangements.  We exist to protect the people and the money involved in these third-party assisted reproduction arrangements. 

In fact, I opened Stork Escrow with my partner Kelly DuMont to do just that: we “poured ourselves a cup of ambition” to protect the people involved in surrogacy and egg donation arrangements from financial harm.  Kelly and I both had experience managing escrow accounts for third-party assisted reproduction and we had both heard some really sad stories of people losing their life savings from surrogacy and family building scams where money was stolen from the intended parents and the surrogate by people at the agency involved in the surrogacy arrangement.  Kelly and I decided to work together to try and find a better way to protect people from getting hurt financially while they worked to build their dream family. 

How escrow agents or fund managers achieve this goal—safeguarding the money and protecting people from getting hurt financially—is achieved in different ways and it’s sometimes dependent on state law.  To some extent, where your surrogacy is going to take place may dictate some of the terms of your escrow arrangements.

California’s surrogacy statute, for example, has provisions pertaining to who can hold the funds and in what type of an account.  If a licensed and bonded escrow agent is not used, California requires that funds be held in an “attorney trust account”.  There are different types of attorney trust accounts that can be used but the bottom line is that these accounts are only available to attorneys and hold the attorneys to very high standards regarding the management of the funds.  In contrast, some states require that independent or third-party escrow agents hold the money but don’t specify the type of bank account in which the funds must be held. 

New York just passed new surrogacy legislation, the Child Parent Security Act (CPSA) which goes into effect in February of 2021.  The CPSA requires that any party to a surrogacy arrangement deposit the money needed for the surrogacy with an independent escrow agent.  New York feels that an independent third party provides necessary separation from the parties interested in the financial transactions involved in a surrogacy arrangement in order to protect everyone involved.  In this context, the funds must be held by someone who has no relationship to the agency or to the people involved in the surrogacy arrangement. 

Using an independent escrow agent prevents self-interest from interfering in the management of the money needed for the surrogacy journey.  You don’t want it to be all “takin’ and no givin’” like that scam I mentioned.  You want to know that no one is going to be taking your money except to give it to someone who legally is entitled to have it. 

And that is really the answer.  If you want to know what an escrow agent or fund manager is, what we’re supposed to do, and why we exist, that’s your reason:  We are here to protect the money that the intended parents need to deposit to cover the surrogacy or egg donation expenses and we make sure it gets paid to the surrogate or egg donor in accordance with the terms of their respective contract.  Call us whatever you want, escrow agent or fund manager, at the end of the day regardless of our name or title, our job is the same: to protect the financial interests of the parties to a gestational surrogacy or egg donation arrangement. 

Third party assisted reproduction is a “rich man’s game, no matter what they call it”, and you may be using your life savings to make your family a reality.  You want to know that you are not putting your money into “another man’s wallet”.  

Why do you need an escrow agent or fund manager?  “Well you’ve got dreams [s]he’ll never take away.”

Up next:

Do all escrow providers offer the same fund security?  What are the different types of accounts used to hold funds and does it matter what type you use?  What are the most important questions to ask your surrogacy agency about escrow fund management?

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The Top Ten Things Reproductive Lawyers Can Help You With

February 10, 2016 | By:

Sometimes when I tell people what I do for a living they look at me like I have two heads.

Reproductive Lawyer?  What’s that???

Part One

In this day and age when celebs like Sofia Vergara and her Ex are all over the news fighting over which one of them is going to get to use their frozen embryos, I am really surprised that so many people have no idea what it is that reproductive lawyers do.  Or more to the point, why reproductive lawyers are not only helpful, but often play a critical and essential role for individuals and couples building their family through third-party assisted reproductive arrangements like surrogacy, egg, sperm, and embryo donation.

So what is it that we do for our clients?  How is it that we play such an important but poorly understood role in the formation of our modern families?  Here, in no particular order, is an overview of the top ten things reproductive lawyers can help you with as you begin to build your family through third-party assisted reproduction.  Now these may not be humor-worthy of top ten list legend David Letterman, but for anyone going through third-party assisted reproduction or considering it, this is an important list:

(1)  Reviewing your agreement with your surrogacy or egg donation agency (sometimes called a service agreement):  If things go south with your relationship with the agency this is the document that is going to be your agency’s safety net and the document you will look to in order to seek a refund of all or some of the money you paid.  Shouldn’t you know your rights and the agency’s obligations and responsibilities before you sign an agreement and work with the agency?

(2) Reviewing your surrogates insurance policy:  What if it doesn’t cover a surrogacy pregnancy?  What options do you have to avoid a potentially catastrophic financial liability?

(3) Preparing contracts for you:  Egg, sperm, and embryo donation agreements (anonymous or known), and gestational surrogacy agreements are all critical documents in protecting your family in the future and protecting you and your donor/surrogate during the IVF process and/or pregnancy.  Understanding the role this agreement plays in third-party assisted reproduction and the necessity for having them drafted is far too often overlooked.  How do you make sure your sperm donor is really a donor and not something more (like a parent)?  When does your egg donor relinquish parental rights?  What happens if she changes her mind about donating? How and when can you use any leftover frozen eggs or preembryos?  What happens if you and your surrogate disagree over something really important like selectively reducing the pregnancy?

(4) Using boilerplate contracts with your agency, or contracts you find on the internet:  Do they really protect you and what issues might arise if you use one?  Did you know that you are probably violating copyright laws by using one?  Did you know you cannot be forced or compelled to use an agreement provided by an agency and that you have the right to use an independent lawyer?

(5)  Entering into a known sperm donation agreement (with a friend or a Starbucks Sperm Donor):  What do you need to know about these sometimes very dicey situations?  What makes them so risky and how can you avoid those risks?  What can you do to protect yourself whether you are the intended parent or the sperm donor?  How can you protect yourself from a known sperm donor asserting parental rights or an intended parent trying to impose parental rights, custody or child support obligations?  Does a sperm donor need to be worried about the State asserting a claim that he has child support obligations?  Good intentions aside, everyone thinking about this form of family building is (in my humble opinion — IMHO) a fool for not consulting with an attorney before entering into this type of family building arrangement.

 

These are just a few of the important ways reproductive lawyers can help you through the obstacle course of third-party assisted reproduction.  We want to help you make smart future-thinking decisions and ensure that everyone has their rights protected as they intend them to be and as they move forward through this process.

Up Next in Part 2 We Explore:

(6)  Planning for Divorce or Death.

(7)  Managing money in a surrogacy arrangement.

(8)  Doing a home insemination:

(9) Getting your birth certificate:

(10) Understanding the impact of changing reproductive laws:

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Five Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes – How do you measure your life in infertility treatment?

March 26, 2015 | By:

 

Five Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes

How do you measure your life in infertility treatment?

How do you measure a day, or a year?

 

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred tests
Five hundred twenty five thousand moments, oh dear
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred dollars
How do you measure, measure an IVF year?

In daylights, in sunsets
In phone calls, in cups of coffee
In inches, in pounds, in needles, in surgery
In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, a year of infertility?

How about love for the baby you’re creating?
How about love for the people helping you conceive?
How about love for your partner or a friend?
Measure in love

Cycles of love
Cycles of love

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred blood draws
Five hundred twenty five thousand follicles to count
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred heartbeats
How do you measure the life of an infertile woman or a man?

In diagnoses that she learned
Or in times that he cried
In money they lost or the day the baby died?

It’s time now, to sing out
Though the story never ends
Let’s celebrate
Remember a year in the life of our infertile friends

Remember to love
Oh, you got to, you got to remember to love
Remember to love
You know that love is a gift from up above
Remember to love
Share love, give love, spread love
Measure in love
Measure, measure your infertility in love

Cycles of love
Cycles of love
Measure your infertility, measure your life in love

Inspired By Rent — Seasons Of Love, Lyrics

 

 

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