About Creative Family Connections
Surrogacy agency and law firm Creative Family Connections has compiled the leading state-by-state surrogacy law map as actually practiced in the 50 states. Surrogacy law, whether by statute or case law, is constantly evolving and changing. The laws are different from state-to-state, and sometimes even from county-to-county. We know from daily practice that the laws as written can differ dramatically from how the laws are actually practiced. Therefore, it is critically important to arm yourself with knowledge and obtain legal representation to navigate the legal challenges that exist in a surrogacy journey.
Creative Family Connections, a boutique law firm & surrogacy agency in the DC area, has been matching LGBTQ parents to gestational surrogates since 2001. CFC helps prospective parents of all kinds (gay and straight, partnered and single, domestic and international) build families through gestational surrogacy with rigorously screened surrogates. We serve our clients as both a surrogacy agency and a law firm, by providing surrogate matching services, concierge level support, and legal services – all in one integrated entity. Schedule a complimentary consultation today.
CFC's legal services include making legally safe and ethical surrogate and intended parent matches, drafting surrogacy contracts, setting up a trust account or escrow and establishing parentage. The agency can recommend a suitable reproductive rights attorney for the surrogate as well.
Creative Family Connections provide surrogate matching services for their clients by finding surrogates that match the IPs criteria. They include unlimited re-matches in their fees when certain criteria are met. Further agency services include coordination of cycles and facilitating communication between all the parties involved. CFC also provides a concierge service to fit individual needs in case the full set of services are not desired.
At CFC, they work with gestational surrogates from any surrogacy-friendly states. Surrogate candidates have to pass an extensive pre-screening process. Those who make it through then have to pass a vetting process which includes a home visit. The compensation base rate for their surrogates ranges from $41,000 to $46,000 for a first time surrogate. This excludes additional stipends. However, the amount varies depending on the state where the surrogate lives and whether the candidate has surrogacy-friendly health insurance.
CFC's experienced and dedicated team includes Diane Hinson, who is the founder and owner. Diane is an elected Fellow of the American Association of Assisted Reproductive Attorneys, a member of the American Bar Association's Reproduction Law Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology, a professional member of theRESOLVE organization, as well as a professional member of ASRM. She graduated from Harvard Law School and is a member of the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland Bars.
Diane Hinson
July 7, 2021 at 10:15 amThank you, Gaurav! We appreciate your feedback!
Diane Hinson
July 7, 2021 at 10:14 amHi Andrew, we release our fees to potential intended parents whom we’ve been in contact with as we understand that surrogacy journeys can be costly. If you’d like to schedule a call or email us at
in**@cr***********************.com
we’d be happy to walk through our process more. We do work with Men Having Babies’ GPAP program to offer pro bono journeys.
Two Dads
June 23, 2021 at 4:50 pmWe had a negative experience with CFC. I have never had to write a negative review for any business before, but hope this is useful to other families.
We are two dads looking to expand our family. So we hired CFC, Diane was charming, we signed the various documents they provided, and then waited.
Very early on, before we even signed with our surrogate, we became alarmed by two issues. 1. We felt the surrogate’s behavior would have put the health of our child at risk. And 2. Concern over the quality of the legal work (and weirdly the demeanor) of CFC’s lawyer working with us.
Our concerns were serious enough that we felt we had no choice but to fire CFC.
CFC’s agreement that you sign is structured such that you pay only those fees that CFC has “earned”. That sounds great. CFC proudly bills this feature on their website. The problem is, CFC has aggressively front-loaded those fees such that even before you sign an agreement with your matched surrogate, CFC claims it has “earned” over 30,000 dollars.
This means that once you sign with CFC, even before you sign with your surrogate, CFC can walk away with over 30,000 dollars – no matter how bad a job they do, no matter how careless they are, no matter how unsuitable you discover your matched surrogate is.
What value did CFC actually provide? In our case, they generated a partially negotiated contract that nobody signed, and they matched us with a surrogate who we fear was a health risk.
Given our negative experience with CFC, we asked for a full refund. Instead, CFC sent back an 8-page termination contract, where they offered to refund a small portion of the fees in exchange for essentially a gag order or NDA where we would be legally blocked indefinitely from ever discussing our experience with CFC. We rejected it. It made us wonder how many other parents have also had negative experiences with CFC, but signed this sort of silence agreement such that parents like us never got to hear the warning signs.
We hope this information helps other families decide whether to work with this company, and we wish you the best of luck building your family.
PS: This was the second time we worked with CFC. The first time went better, not without some frustration, but certainly not bad enough that we felt we had to complain or fire them. When it was all over, CFC asked us multiple times to post perfect scoring reviews. (It also appears at least one 5-star review listed here on this site is from a CFC employee.) A few years later, we decided to try for a sibling. When discussing whether to hire CFC again, we decided we were already familiar with their process and “how bad could it be”. So we went for it. The rest you can read above. We wish you and other families well, and hope this information is of some use.
Diane Hinson
July 7, 2021 at 10:13 amWe are sincerely sorry that your second experience with CFC was not the exemplary experience we hope each and every intended parent has with CFC. We strive to find the right gestational surrogate match for each journey and work hard behind the scenes to provide a supportive, high-touch journey. We appreciate your feedback and will use it to improve our process for the future.
Herschel Chandler
January 31, 2022 at 4:24 amThank you for this review! We’ve decided to only work with agencies that do not require up front fees or retainers.