Fortunately our adoptions were after 2000 so our kids were covered by the change in law
The only lawyer we saw was in a Russian courtroom
That was 14 years ago
So no, there is no requirement for a U.S. lawyer to be involved unless the kids were re adopted in the US - ours weren’t
We did do the readoption thing, but that had absolutely no effect on her status as an American citizen. So long as both parents are present to "pick-up" the child from the original country, citizenship is automatic.
That is interesting. I can see then how someone wouldn’t give citizenship a thought, but it still seems wrong to me that it wouldn’t be automatic.
This is just another example of what’s wrong with our current immigration laws: everything.