Some of the competition comes from lawyers who handle independent adoptions: "Now everybody thinks adoption is easy money, especially the attorneys," Ms. Chalker said.

Mrs. Soto did not have any license to handle adoptions or care for children.

There are serious issues about the Surrogate's Court, which handles wills, estates and adoptions and funnels millions of dollars in business to law firms.

The primary caseworker for the Jacksons was responsible for 33 children, although the recommended national standard for workers handling adoptions is less than half that.

Many other Israelis used brokers or lawyers to handle adoptions, as did the mother who helped bribe Brazilian officials.

Chinese Girls Available "We were recently the law firm chosen to handle adoptions with China," she said.

The sites generally do not handle adoptions of healthy infants, which are done by a different network of agencies.

Among them is New York, where lawyers can handle independent adoptions and advise their clients on finding pregnant women, but not make such an introduction themselves.

If you can't locate any, give me a list of adoption agencies in and around Memphis as well as attorneys who were known to handle private adoptions.

It stated its first mission was reuniting families, but it also maintained an obscure - and unmonitored - corporate authority to handle adoptions.