Ted R. Youmans

Areas of Practice

  • Adoption

  • Guardianship

  • Foster Care

Litigation Percentage

  • 85% of Practice Devoted to Litigation

Bar Admissions

  • California, 1987

Education

  • Whittier College School of Law, Los Angeles, California

  • University of Arizona – 1982

Classes/Seminars

  • Adjunct Adoption Law Professor, Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa, California

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.  He has worked exclusively in the area of adoption; adoption litigation; foster parent and dependency litigation, and guardianships. He became a named partner of Van Deusen, Youmans & Walmsley of Santa Ana, California, in 1992. In November 2008, Mr. Youmans and his wife Sheryl founded FAMILYBUILDING™, A Professional Law Corporation. He is an active member of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys and Academy of California Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys, which academies are dedicated to the promotion and development of highly competent, ethical practices in adoption and children’s law. Other talented lawyers who are called to adoption law have joined the Familybuilding™ team, whose mission is to transform generational lines through adoption. In addition to the Law practice Mr. Youmans has been active in legislative changes in these areas of the law.

In January, 2006 he served as an Adjunct Adoption Law Professor at Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa, California and served on the Law School’s Center For Children’s Rights Board of Advisors.  He was 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 was the 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; volunteered in the Santa Ana Stay-In-School and Career Day Programs; The Joseph’s Storehouse Ministry to assist single mothers, the financially destitute and homeless, and; coached Little League for over ten years.

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 Youmans has been lead and associate counsel in numerous published and unpublished appellate court cases that have established precedents at the California Courts of Appeal and Supreme Court involving adoption, dependency/foster care, surrogacy and guardianship law.  He has spoken throughout California on adoption, guardianship and foster parent’s issues 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, periodicals, and T.V. shows over the past 30 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 30 years. Mr. Youmans has two step children, three biological children, an adopted daughter and fostered two relatives. The opportunity his family has been given to adopt and foster has given him a personal perspective and an invested heart and passion for on what he advocates for each day.

—References Available Upon Request—