Joanna Beck Wilkinson began practicing family building law as a member of LMB in 2008.  She has practiced in more than 38 Missouri Counties and 22 Judicial Circuits; has finalized more than 600 adoptions and has represented clients in more than 300 parentage actions and collaborative reproduction agreements. Joanna is licensed to practice law in Missouri, Illinois, Kansas and the United States Supreme Court.

Joanna guest lectures at Washington University and University of Missouri schools of law in classes such as adoption law and sex, reproduction and the law. She has authored articles for industry publications and bar journals on pre-embryo practice and same-sex family building and recently co-authored a Brief of Amicus Curiae for a United States Supreme Court case.

Joanna is a Fellow of the Academy of Adoption & Assisted Reproductive Attorneys (AAAA). Fellowship in AAAA is by invitation only and based on criteria for excellence in the practices of adoption and assisted reproduction law, respectively. Joanna is also a member of the American Bar Association’s Section on Assisted Reproductive Technology and the American Society of Reproductive Medicine’s Legal Professional Group. 

Joanna counsels and represents adoptive and birth parents in LMB’s uncontested independent, agency, stepparent, second parent, international, and foster adoption practice. Joanna also represents intended parents, gestational carriers and gamete donors in all aspects of collaborative reproduction, from negotiating and drafting gestational carrier and gamete donor agreements, through the parentage actions that legally establish and disestablish parental rights. Joanna’s collaborative reproduction practice extends across multiple jurisdictions, both nationally and internationally.

Before Joanna joined LMB, she worked at several high profile, national adoption law firms including Kirsh & Kirsh, P.C. in Indianapolis and Gradstein & Gorman in San Francisco.

Joanna enjoys obscure French fashion, St. Louis Cardinals Baseball, jogging in Forest Park and playing Mario Cart with her husband and their four, yes, four, young sons.