By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

Irene Anzai focuses on real estate law. Caroline Otani deals with real estate, collections and foreclosures. But recently, both attorneys at the downtown law firm Rush Moore Craven Sutton Morry and Beh have stepped far out of their areas of specialization to help families formalize hanai adoptions.

The pro bono project is a partnership that began last fall between the law firm and Legal Aid. Since then, four adoption cases have been completed and several more are in the works.

Legal Aid does the initial screening and makes referrals. The families fall in the lower income bracket and cannot afford private adoptions. The cases that Rush Moore takes on must be uncontested adoptions where the client is the caregiver of a child who is a relative, such as a niece or grandchild. Legal Aid attorneys handle 30 to 40 adoption cases a year, including contested adoptions, so they're happy for the help. "It's a huge need that we have," says Daniel Pollard, staff attorney for Legal Aid. "We have way more people asking us to do this work than we can do."

Though the hanai tradition is quite common in Hawai'i, Pollard says there are many reasons why relatives chose to adopt a hanai child formally. There are a number of public benefits that are entitled to adoptive parents, including tax credits; but perhaps more important is the issue of stability.

"There are the obvious advantages to the child in terms of having a stable, secure, safe environment, to not always have to be worried about mom or dad coming over and taking them away. Most of our cases, that's probably not something that's happening, but fears in children aren't necessarily rational."

Otani worked on a case where a 12-year old boy was adopted by his grandparents. To calm jitters before the big day, Otani had the family practice their day in court with a mock hearing.

"They came into my office and I said, 'OK, you're going to come in, check into the front, then you'll go down this hallway...' We ran through the questions the judge would ask so they would feel prepared for adoption day."

Anzai is an adoptive mother, a perspective she has shared with her colleagues.

"With my daughter, we would celebrate adoption day, so I thought that it would be fun with the children in these cases to commemorate the day with a little present."

Now, on the big day, Rush Moore attorneys come to court with a special gift for the child and family. Otani got her family a big gift basket. Anzai, who worked on the adoption of a 6-year-old boy by his grandparents, did some research to find out what a 6-year-old boy might like and got him a remote-control car.

"The little boy loved it," Anzai says. "I said, 'This is your adoption day present!', and I don't know if he understood, but it was special for me."

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.