Maxine M. Buckmeier, P.C.

If I could rate her a zero, I would. In March 2012 we started the adoption process. Our local adoption agent (in Kansas City) sent our bio out to a few other attorneys that we’re looking for adoptive families. On a hot day that June, we were notified by an attorney (who ended up being Mrs. Buckmeier) of a birth mother in Sioux City that had chosen us to adopt her baby; and she was in labor and wanted us present for the baby’s birth. We left for Sioux City within 6 hours of the call. We were only given the attorney’s contact info to call when we arrived and n town; we had no idea who the mother was or what hospital she was in. So we called Mrs. Buckmeier to coordinate our meeting. She asked us to come to her office. When we got to her office, we were ushered into a conference room to wait. When Mrs. Buckmeier arrived, she was accompanied by a man from Adopt Connect. The man said HE had coordinated with the birth mother and had been the one to show her our adoption profile. He said he called Mrs. Buckmeier to contact us. Now, he was charging us a “finder’s fee” of $8,000!! We had driven thru three states over eight hours to adopt this woman’s child. So, we paid the finder’s fee in addition to Mrs. Buckmeier $7,000 retainer, only when they had our money in hand did they even tell us what hospital the birth mother was in, but they wouldn’t tell us her name until our checks were deposited and the money in the account verified. The man had indicated that it was he that the hospital called when the birth mother decided to give the baby up for adoption. However, after we met the birthmother AND the hospital’s social worker; they both explained that they did NOT call him, (the birth mother had never heard of him!) they called Mrs. Buckmeier. The social worker then told us that this man; “the facilitator” was, in fact, Buckmeier’s husband. So, the hospital called Buckmeier, Buckmeier then decided to double down on her fees and have her husband to charge us a fee on top of her legal fees. Our daughter is now almost 10 years old, and we couldn’t imagine her not being our daughter. But we were scammed by Buckmeier (and her then) husband out of $8,000 for him to attend our 20 minutes meeting when we paid our retainer to Buckmeier. DO YOUR HOMEWORK!! Check with the local hospital’s social worker to see if they called Buckmeier? Or did they call adopt connect.