Practice Areas: Foster Care Adoption, Stepparent + Second Parent Adoption, Domestic Infant Adoption, Surrogacy, International Surrogacy, ART Law + Gamete Donor Agreements, Adult Adoption, Relative Adoption, Parentage Orders
Why I Practice in Family Law: "I love children and consider it a privilege to help people build their families. I am also a huge geek and enjoy the study of law."
Foster Care Adoption, Stepparent + Second Parent Adoption, Domestic Infant Adoption, Surrogacy, International Surrogacy, ART Law + Gamete Donor Agreements, Adult Adoption, Relative Adoption, Parentage Orders
Joanna Beck Wilkinson has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Loyola University Chicago and a juris doctor from the University of Minnesota. She worked for a contested adoption firm in the San Francisco Bay Area and a boutique private adoption practice in Indianapolis before joining Professor Mary Beck’s practice in 2008. She is based in St. Louis, Missouri.
Joanna guest lectures at Washington University and the University of Missouri schools of law in classes such as adoption law and sex, reproduction and the law. She has spoken nationally and internationally at continuing legal education conferences and authored articles for industry publications and bar journals on pre-embryo practice and same-sex family building.
In 2022, Joanna co-authored a brief of amicus curiae for a U.S. Supreme Court case that was quoted in a majority opinion. In 2024, she wrote the Missouri Bar Manual on parentage. Joanna is licensed in Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas and Kansas, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court.
She is a member of the American Bar Association’s Family Law Section on assisted reproductive technology and a fellow of the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys.
Joanna enjoys jogging in Forest Park, St. Louis Cardinals baseball, obscure French fashion, restoring her family’s 1904 World’s Fair home in St. Louis’ Central West End neighborhood and playing Uno with her four young sons, English setter puppy and husband.