Ted R. Youmans, Attorney

Ted R. Youmans was born in 1960 in Rockford, Illinois and is a member of a family of seven children.  He has lived in Southern California since 1983 when he commenced his law school education in Los Angeles. He graduated from Whittier Law School in 1986, after receiving his Bachelors Degree in 1982 from the University of Arizona.  After becoming licensed to practice law in California in 1987, he worked for the same law firm, becoming a named partner in Van Deusen, Youmans & Walmsley of Santa Ana, California, in 1992.  The firm specialized in adoption; adoption litigation; foster parent and dependency litigation; guardianships, and; Surrogacy and related litigation.   In November 2009, Mr. Youmans founded the Center For Family Building, The Law Office of Ted R. Youmans.  In addition to the Children's Law practice Mr. Youmans has been active in legislative changes in these areas of the law. 

 Mr. Youmans is an active member of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys and California Academy of Adoption Attorneys, which academies are dedicated to the promotion and development of highly competent, ethical practices in adoption and children's law. In January, 2006 he served as an Adjunct Adoption Law Professor at Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa, California and continues to serve on the Law School's Center For Children's Rights Board of Advisors.  He is a Board Member of His Children, Inc., a non-profit whose mission it is to educate and encourage the Christian Community and churches to develop Adoption Ministries in order to provide homes for orphans and foster children.  He is a past Chairman of and current Board Member of the Orange County Youth Commission; is a past Chairman of the Fiduciary Board of his local church; volunteers in the Santa Ana Stay-In-School and Career Day Programs; Established The Joseph's Storehouse Ministry to assist single mothers, the financially destitute and homeless, and; coached Little League since 1998.

 Mr. Youmans has been lead and associate counsel in numerous published and unpublished appellate court cases that have established precedents at the California Courts of Appeal and Supreme Court involving adoption, dependency/foster care, surrogate and guardianship law.  He has spoken throughout California on adoption, guardianship and foster parent's rights over his professional career.  His professional goal is to educate the community about adoption; promote adoption; prevent children from falling into the foster care system; maintaining children in stable, loving homes, and; promoting guardianships by relatives where adoption is not available.  

 In 2004 Mr. Youmans was published in the Whittier Journal of Child and Family Advocacy, Fall 2004: in an article entitled Adoption: An Answer For Children In Crisis.  He has been interviewed by several newspapers and periodicals over the past 20 years regarding new statutory and case law developments as well as cases he was involved in that were in the press because of their public policy ramifications.

 He has been married to his wife, Sheryl for over 20 years, who has now joined him in the law practice.  Mr. Youmans has two step children, three biological children, and raised two relatives, one of which was orphaned by the premature death of her parents.  He believes the opportunity his family has been given to be involved in the raising of these relative children has given him a unique and personal perspective on what he advocates in regard to children having a permanent, stable home.

---References Available Upon Request---