Meet Our Officers
Janna Annest
AAAA President
Janna is a Founding Member of Foster + Bloom Family Formation Law Group, where her practice focuses on adoption and assisted reproduction law, minor guardianships, and estate planning. She began building her family formation practice after adopting her daughter in 2008 and became a Fellow of the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys in 2015.
A dual member of the Academy, Janna brings deep experience across all types of adoption — including complex matters involving ICWA and ICPC, step-, second-, and third-parent adoptions, contested adoptions, and birth parent representation — as well as representing all parties in gestational and genetic surrogacy agreements and gamete donation contracts. Within the Academy, she has co-chaired two Annual Conferences, led the Independent Adoption Committee, and served on the Board of Trustees from 2022 to 2025 before becoming President-Elect.
Janna is a Seattle native. She graduated cum laude with high honors from Dartmouth College in 2000, where she captained the women's volleyball team and spent time as a visiting student at Oxford University. She earned her J.D. with honors from the University of Washington School of Law in 2003, where she served as a Notes and Comments Editor of the Washington Law Review.
Outside the office, Janna has served as President of the Western Washington Dartmouth Alumni Association, competed in USAV volleyball, and remained active in local adoption support and education groups. With her children now in their teens, she is rediscovering her lost hobbies of gardening, crafting, and home improvement. She also switched to beach volleyball because it's easier on the joints.
Jennie Sullivan
Executive Director
Jennie Sullivan has been working in the area of adoption for over 30 years, first in the adoption law firm of Kirsh & Kirsh and now in her role as the Executive Director and Secretary for the Academy of Adoption & Assisted Reproduction Attorneys. In addition to her work for AAAA, Ms. Sullivan handles the administrative duties for the Family Formation Charitable Trust, a non-profit foundation started by AAAA and dedicated to providing education, support and financial assistance to those seeking to build their families through adoption or assisted reproductive technology. Ms. Sullivan received her law degree from Indiana University and earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Xavier University.
Jennie Sullivan is a wife and mother of three boys. She is an avid reader, loves to travel, and in her free time enjoys handling her own home improvements.
Genie Miller Gillespie
Adoption Policy Director
Genie Miller Gillespie, Gillespie Law Group, LLC, concentrates her practice exclusively in adoption, guardianship, assisted reproductive technology (ART) and other issues relating to children and families. She is a Past President of the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys and currently serves as its Adoption Policy Director. Genie is an Illinois Leading Lawyer and Super Lawyer in the areas of adoption and ART; and is a member of the Chicago Bar Association, American Bar Association, SEEDS Ethics, American Immigration Lawyers Association, ASRM, and Lavendar Law. In 2016, she was recognized as an Angel in Adoption by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute in Washington, DC. She was one of a limited number of attorneys appointed as guardian ad litem in adoption cases in Cook County for fourteen years. She was one of the co-founders and prior Legal Services Director for the Center for Law and Social Work [now Greenlight], where she worked part-time until 2011. From 2006 through 2008, she was the Director of the ABA Child Custody and Adoption Pro Bono Project. She is the General Editor and chapter author for the IICLE Adoption Law Manual and has written numerous training materials regarding adoption law. She has spoken at numerous seminars and meetings related to adoption and ART for attorneys, agencies, foster parents and prospective adoptive parents and has been the chair of the Chicago Bar Association Adoption Law Committee twice. She has appeared in two episodes of Illinois Law, the Illinois State Bar Association cable television show, regarding domestic and international adoptions. Prior to starting her own practice, she served as the Pro Bono Director at the Chicago Bar Foundation; was in private practice with a small firm handling domestic relations and mental health matters; and spent her first year after law school clerking for the Honorable Wendell P. Gardner, Jr., at the Superior Court for the District of Columbia. She received her B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis, and her law degree from the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America.
Laura Koupal
ART Policy Director
Laura Koupal is an experienced family law attorney who began her legal career over twenty years ago. She has represented thousands of clients in assisted reproduction technology matters, complex divorce litigation, non-traditional and LGBTQ+ family formation and dissolution, adoption and estate planning matters. Laura also completed a one-year clerkship with the Honorable Christina M. Habas of Denver District Court following law school.
Laura has been recognized by her peers for excellence in her field of practice and holds the highest possible “AV-Preeminent” rating for legal ethics and ability from Martindale Hubble. She has been selected for inclusion in Best Lawyers® in America in the category of family law, has been recognized as a “Super Lawyer” and a “Rising Star” by Colorado Super Lawyers and has been included in “Top Lawyers” in Denver’s 5280 Magazine.
Laura holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Colorado and a Juris Doctor from the University of Denver. She is a Fellow and is serving on the Board of Trustees as the ART Deputy Director of the Academy of Adoption & Assisted Reproduction Attorneys, a select group of attorneys with rigorous standards for membership. She is also a professional Member of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, RESOLVE, the Colorado Bar Association Family Law Section and the Denver Bar Association, and a Member of the American Bar Association Assisted Reproduction Technology Committee.
Laura accepts adoption pro bono clients through Metro Volunteer Lawyers and has volunteered with the Colorado Supreme Court Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel. Laura regularly writes and speaks on the issues of family law and assisted reproductive technology law.
Laura enjoys legal advocacy work and most recently worked with Colorado colleagues to draft and successfully lobby the passage of the Colorado Surrogacy Agreement Act (HB 21-1022) signed by Governor Polis on May 6, 2021.
Outside of work, Laura enjoys travelling and spending time in the Colorado outdoors camping, hiking, fishing and snowboarding with her husband, Chris and their three children.
Nidhi Desai
President-Elect
Nidhi is an attorney in private practice, practicing in the areas of assisted reproductive technology (ART) and adoption. She currently serves as the Director of ART for the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys (AAAA) and as a member of its Board of Directors. She serves as a board member of the Chicago Coalition for Family Building, a foundation that helps individuals and couples struggling with infertility through education and financial assistance and has been appointed to the legal advisory group for Men having Babies, a not-for-profit group providing education and resources for prospective intended parents.
She has been instrumental in helping to craft local and national policy surrounding ART. She has worked on drafting and passing legislation to protect the rights of families born of assisted reproductive technology in Illinois, first in 2005 with the passage of the Illinois Gestational Surrogacy Act and most recently in 2015 with updates to the Illinois Parentage Act to protect children and families born of gamete donation. She has served on the Illinois State Bar Association’s Genetics and Human Reproduction Task Force, formed to examine and develop policy recommendations for the myriad issues that arise surrounding these new technologies, and has been appointed to several committees throughout the years to provide education and recommendations to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regarding federal embryo donation policy.
Nidhi previously served on the Society of Assisted Reproductive Technology’s (SART) executive counsel as well as serving as the Chair of the Legal Professionals of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), and the Leadership Council of the Illinois local area affiliate of RESOLVE. On behalf of RESOLVE of Illinois, she has cocoordinated and taught “The Nuts and Bolts of Collaborative Reproduction,” a one-day seminar that highlighted the psychological, medical and legal issues involved in family building through assisted reproduction.
Her peers have also selected her as a member of the Leading Lawyers network by her peers.
Nidhi authored the chapter on surrogacy and assisted reproduction for the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education (IICLE) Practice Handbook on Illinois Adoption Law, and is a frequent speaker on legal issues, both locally and nationally, addressing medical and legal professionals including ASRM, the American Bar Association and AAAA.
Nidhi obtained her undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis. She then received her law degree from Loyola University Chicago, where she served as an articles’ editor for the Loyola Annals of Health Law.
She works with individuals and couples from all around the globe to help them realize their dreams of creating a legally secure family.
Meryl B. Rosenberg
Immediate Past President
Meryl B. Rosenberg Esq. is an attorney in private practice specializing in the field of assisted reproductive technology (ART). For over 30 years she has helped intended parents all around the globe build their families through surrogacy, gamete donation, embryo donation, and second-parent and stepparent adoption. Meryl also assisted many families grow through adoption before concentrating her practice on ART.
Among the many local and international non-profit organizations she actively participates in, Ms. Rosenberg is a Fellow of the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys (AAAA), is the Immediate Past President and served on the Board of Trustees for two terms, is a past member of the ART executive committee and chair of its ART membership committee for the same. Meryl is a past board member of the Jewish Fertility Foundation, is past chair and member of the executive board of the Legal Professional Group of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), is past co-chair of the Legal Advisory Committee of Path2Parenthood (now part of Family Equality), is a professional member of RESOLVE, is a member of the ABA Reproductive Technology Committee, past CLE chair of the same and liaison to the Family Law Section, and is a member of Family Law Institute of the LGBTQ Bar. Ms. Rosenberg has worked collaboratively with colleagues in DC, Maryland and Michigan to champion positive change in legislation affecting those who build their families through ART. Ms. Rosenberg has been a guest lecturer for the University of Maryland School of Law and the American University Washington College of Law. She is also a frequent educator and lecturer for AAAA, ASRM, the ABA Family Law Section, Rainbow Families DC, Men Having Babies, and other organizations on relevant topics surrounding ART and family building. Meryl co-authored a chapter for the book produced by Springer, entitled “The Mental Health Clinician’s Handbook for Abortion Care.” Meryl is a member of the District of Columbia, Maryland, Michigan and New Jersey Bar Associations, as well as the LGBTQ+ Bar. In her former life, Meryl was an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Michigan.
In her spare time Meryl enjoys playing with her grandkids, hiking, biking, skiing, and seeing the world with her family and friends.
Greg Franklin
Deputy to the President
Greg is a member of the firm of Ashcraft & Franklin, LLP, in Rochester, New York. He graduated from Fordham University School of Law in 1984; adoption and assisted fertility comprise approximately 90% of his law practice. He is admitted to practice in the State of New York and in the Federal courts.
Greg began concentrating his practice in adoptions when he and his wife adopted their son. Since then, he has represented thousands of adoptive parents and birth parents in domestic and international adoptions, step-parent, co-parent and foster care adoptions, and has worked extensively in the area of assisted fertility, representing gestational carriers, surrogate mothers, egg and sperm donors, and their intended families. Greg takes particular pride in his representation of members of the LGBTQ+ and transgender communities, and has represented members of this community in litigation which changed New York adoption law.
Greg was born and grew up in New York City. After graduating from Grinnell College in 1978, he lived in London, England, working for Virgin Records in various capacities, eventually becoming the Assistant to the company’s Managing Director.
In his parallel life, Greg is a musician, playing bass in several bands, including Americana, blues and Celtic music. He and his wife travel to fun and exotic places as often as they can, taking cooking classes everywhere they go.
Catelyn Slattery
Deputy Director of Domestic Adoption Policy
Catelyn Slattery is the owner of Slattery Law, LLC, Modern Family Formation Law Offices. She is an attorney licensed in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. She focuses her practice on adoption and family formation through assisted reproductive technology (ART). Catelyn has been building families through adoption and ART for more than a decade and is an Adoption Fellow of the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys ("AAAA").
Catelyn has represented countless birth parents in adoption plans as well as representing adopting parents across all three jurisdictions where she is admitted to practice. She handles LGBTQ cases involving step parent, second parent, confirmatory adoptions as well as parentage matters.
Catelyn has her J.D. from New England School of Law in Boston. While in law school, she focused her education on family law and the rights of children. She helped start the Education Law and Policy Association at New England Law. She was also a member of the Family Law Society and Children’s Law Society.
Catelyn has been a speaker for numerous organizations regarding adoption. She has also presented CLEs on adoption topics within the field and has presented at the AAAA annual conference, as well as presented a CLE sponsored by the AAAA Independent Adoption Committee. Catelyn is an active member of the county Women’s Bar Association and is one of the chairs for the WBA auction.
Catelyn has represented clients pro bono and received an award from KIND (Kids in Need of Defense) for her commitment to her clients.
She resides in Maryland and enjoys spending time with family and her rescue dog when she's not working.
Kelly Dempsey
Deputy Director of International Adoption Policy
Kelly is a Partner at Fox Rothschild LLP, a 1,000-lawyer national law firm with
29 offices. She is a fierce, compassionate and experienced advocate who provides legal representation to a broad range of diverse clients in all aspects of family formation, including assisted reproductive technology (ART), surrogacy, and domestic and international adoptions.
Kelly provides comprehensive guidance to clients and handles the full spectrum of adoption options, including domestic, international, step-parent and relative adoptions and adoptions from foster care, as well as disruptions, dissolutions, and contested adoptions. She also helps clients demystify and navigate the legal challenges related to surrogacy and ART, including counseling clients through the immigration and naturalization process for foreign-born adopted children.
Proud mother to four children, one of whom was adopted from Vietnam and another domestically, Kelly has a genuine understanding of the personal aspects of adoption that shines through in the attentive and thoughtful way in which she represents her clients on their family formation journey.
Tabitha Koh
Deputy Director of ART Policy
Rob Kirsh
Treasurer
Rob Kirsh has been practicing law for 23 years, 17 of which in adoption law, beginning while he lived in Memphis, Tennessee. He practices with his brother Steve (AAAA Past President), brother Joel (AAAA Past Networking Chair), and nephew Grant. Combined, the "Kirsh Boys" have over 110 years of experience practicing adoption law, and, over the last 40+ years, have handled approximately 4,000 infant adoptions.
Rob is admitted in Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Tennessee, working with expectant moms, adoptive parents, attorneys, and adoption agencies on interstate/ICPC and intrastate adoptions. An instrument-rated Private Pilot, Rob flies the firm’s Columbia 350 airplane for adoptions across the Hoosier State, Land of Lincoln, Bluegrass State, Great Lakes State, Magnolia State, Land of Enchantment, and Volunteer State regularly. Although a big territory, he can be anywhere from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, to the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico, within a few hours, when a phone call or video chat isn't personal enough.
Rob earned his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology degree from Indiana University, his Juris Doctor degree from The University of Tulsa College of Law, and his Master of Science in Management (MBA) degree from the Purdue University Daniels School of Business. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Adoption & Assisted Reproduction Attorneys (AAAA), serves on the Academy's Board of Trustees, and is AAAA's Treasurer.
Rob and his wife Amy live in Carmel, a suburb of Indianapolis. Their daughter Campbell and son Hudson are college students at Indiana University. Their goldendoodle Wilson loves belly rubs, car rides, and going to the office with Rob. Rob is an avid cyclist (indoor and outdoor).
To Rob, there is no more fulfilling type of work. He loves helping expectant moms turn challenging situations into positive ones, creating loving adoptive families, and working with his family and other adoption professionals to do the same!
