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 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
is a pioneer and recognized leader in the field. As a lawyer,
she has helped hundreds of parents have miracle babies protecting
their legal rights while using all available reproductive
technologies.
Melissa is the first attorney to ever obtain orders allowing
the genetic parents to go directly on the birth certificate
for gestational carrier arrangements in the States of Maine
and New Jersey. She argued
and won a landmark gestational carrier case before the Supreme
Court of Massachusetts
and the State Supreme Court of New
York, setting legal precedents for birth orders in those
states.
She was the first attorney ever to place two women on the
birth certificate of their child, without an adoption, in
the State of New Jersey;
and to place two men on the birth certificate of their children,
born through a gestational carrier, without an adoption,
in the State of Pennslyvania.
She has been a keynote speaker for the New Jersey Society
for Reproductive Nursing Specialists, the American Society
of Reproductive Medicine and is on the board of the American
Fertility Association. She is a professional member of Resolve,
Organization of Parents Through Surrogacy (OPTS) and the
American Society of Reproductive Medicine. Melissa was the
recipient of the 2004 Star of Resolve Award and is a chapter
author of Reproductive Medicine Secrets by Zev Rosenwaks.
Currently, Melissa is serving on the Advisory Board of Conceive
Magazine. She is also the author of numerous articles
on the subject of reproductive law.
Melissa drafts and negotiates contracts for many types
of reproductive arrangements including gestational carrier
contracts, ovum, sperm and embryo donation contracts; locates
gestational carriers; matches couples with the gestational
carrier of their choice; works with international
couples and same sex gestational carrier arrangements;
organizes home studies and background checks on the gestational
carrier and her partner; coordinates medical & psychological
aspects of reproductive arrangements; 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; provides escrow account
services and handles insurance appeals.