In 2006, Ms. Sondra Shineovich came to our offices needing legal assistance. After a long, hard battle, and with the appellate work of Mr. Mark Johnson Roberts (now ‘of counsel’ with Gevurtz Menashe), the Oregon Court of Appeals declared unconstitutional the Oregon laws granting presumptive parental rights to heterosexual husbands of women who bear children of artificial insemination, and expanded those laws to provide the same presumptive rights and responsibilities to the non-AI-birth partner in same-sex female relationships. Her case was remanded back to the Multnomah County Circuit Court, and, with the representation of Owens / Pinzelik, P.C., in December, 2010, Sondra was declared the legal parent to the son and daughter taken away from her by her former partner.
We were and continue to be ecstatic at the result obtained for her.
Click the thumbnail above or this hyperlink to watch Sondra tell her story.
Thanks, Sondra.
The struggles that Sondra went through during the time frame of her court battle was such a DIFFICULT journey for her, and her children. Owens, Sneller, Penzilik & Wood along with Mark Johnson Roberts during the appellate phase of the trial, were excellent in every sense of the word. She is such a strong, warrior-like lady, and though she didn’t set out to expand any laws — just focused on seeing her rights be acknowledged in a legal sense — her case ended up expanding the laws in Oregon for every family in artificial insemination situations. So many people impacted by one pioneering woman. <3