Most days, Steptoe & Johnson partner Gary Morgans is a public utilities lawyer, handling complex regulatory matters for corporations. But on November 17, he was in court supporting a very different type of client: a family finalizing an adoption.

Morgans' client was one of 26 families to have adoption papers officially signed during the District of Columbia Superior Court's annual Adoption Day ceremony. The families took center stage, but it was also a day of celebration for the lawyers, social workers, judges and others who worked behind the scenes to connect loving parents with children in the city's public child welfare system.

The difference in a child's life once they've been placed with a new family is "a night and day situation for them," said Morgans, who has been handling adoption cases pro bono for a decade. Steptoe is one of several firms where lawyers take adoption cases referred by the Children's Law Center.