Melissa's Qualifications

Melissa Brisman graduated Valedictorian from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and graduated with honors from Harvard Law School. She is an attorney admitted to practice in Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, and is a licensed certified public accountant.

Melissa B. Brisman first started helping couples become parents of miracle babies in 1996. Actually, she was her own first client, guiding and directing the process in which she and her husband, Dan, became parents of twin boys carried by a gestational carrier. A few years later, they had a daughter carried by another gestational carrier.

As a mother, Melissa is uniquely qualified. She understands the emotion and concern involved in creating a family and, as a lawyer, has successfully won many cases in this field. She has helped protect the rights of hundreds of parents who have had miracle babies using all available reproductive technologies.

Melissa is the first attorney to obtain court orders directing that the genetic parents be placed on the original birth certificates of their children born to gestational carriers in the State of Maine, in 1997, and the State of New Jersey, in 2000. She also argued and won landmark gestational carrier cases before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in 2001 and the State Supreme Court of New York in 2004, setting legal precedents for birth orders in these states.

In 2003, Melissa was the first attorney to obtain a court order placing two women on the birth certificate of their child, without an adoption, in the State of New Jersey; and, in 2005, to place two men on the birth certificate of their children, born through a gestational carrier, without an adoption, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In 2008, she was also able to have two women who were validly married in Canada placed on the birth certificate of their child in the State of New York.

Melissa has been a keynote speaker at numerous events and organizational activities and for prestigious institutions across the country including the New Jersey Society for Reproductive Nursing Specialists conference, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, Cornell Hospital and the Donor Egg Conference held each year in Charleston, South Carolina. Melissa is on the board of the American Fertility Association, Fertile Dreams and Conceive Magazine. She is the legal advisor and a Board Member of Parents Via Egg Donation (PVED). Melissa is a professional member of Resolve, the American Bar Association-Family Law Section-Reproductive and Genetic Technology Committee (ABA), the Egg Donation and Surrogacy Professional Organization (EDSPA), the Organization of Parents Through Surrogacy (OPTS), The Embracing Hope Scholarship Committee and the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM). Melissa was the recipient of the 2004 Star of Resolve Award and is a chapter author of Reproductive Medicine Secrets by Zev Rosenwaks. In 2006, Melissa B. Brisman's law firm, Melissa B. Brisman, Esq., LLC was named as a finalist for the prestigious 2006 Forbes Enterprise Award. Melissa is also the author of numerous articles on the subjects of gestational carriers and reproductive law.

Melissa drafts and negotiates contracts for many types of reproductive arrangements including gestational carrier contracts, ovum, sperm and embryo donation contracts and adoptions; works with international couples; finalizes same sex and step parent adoptions; obtains court orders for gestational carrier arrangements to allow the intended parents to go directly on the birth certificate of their child at birth; processes name changes; and reviews insurance books on behalf of intended parents and their gestational carriers.



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