Definition:
A legal risk placement is when a child is placed with a prospective adoptive family and the child is not yet legally free for adoption. A child becomes legally free once a parent's parental rights are terminated or the parents have relinquished their parental rights. In the case of a legal risk placement either the termination hasn't occurred yet or it has and is being contested in court by the birth family.
When a family takes in a child that is considered to be a legal risk placement, that family must understand that the child may be placed back with his birth family. This is not just a legal risk in terms of the courts, but a risk of the prospective adoptive family's heart.
