Richard B. Vaughn, Esq.
“I love helping parents (as well as surrogates and donors) navigate and better understand what can be an intensely personal and emotional process layered with all the important and sometimes confusing legal documents and procedures.”
Attorney Richard B. Vaughn combines his passion for family formation with 20 years of experience in business and technology law. Rich, and his law partner Will Halm, joined forces and co-founded International Fertility Law Group [IFLG], one of the most successful and best-known law firms in the world focusing on assisted reproductive technology law. Becoming a father himself drove his passion for helping others on the road to family formation. “I was absolutely fascinated by it when I was starting to go through it as an intended parent and literally have been in love with what I do ever since.”
Rich Vaughn first studied reproductive and fertility law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law in the early 1990s. In 1993, Rich began providing litigation, contract, technology, marketing and corporate legal services to individual clients, companies and municipalities in Chicago and Los Angeles. With the formation of IFLG, he was able to combine his multi-disciplinary legal experience with his passion and pride in forming his own family through surrogacy and egg donation to assist clients worldwide with family formation through assisted reproduction.
Rich is the Chair of the Assisted Reproductive Technology committee of the ABA’s Family Law Section. Rich has also served on the National Board of the American Fertility Association. Additionally, he is a member of the California Bar Association (CBA) and its Family Law Section, the National LGBT Bar Association, and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) and the ASRM’s Legal Professionals Group. He has been published in the American Journal of Family Law and the Australian Family Law Journal. Rich has lectured at numerous legal and family-building conferences around the U.S., and he has guest lectured at California Western School of Law. Additionally, Rich has been featured on CNN, National Public Radio (The Diane Rehm Show), Wall Street Journal, The London Times Magazine, Pink Parenting, Parenting Magazine Live, and other radio shows and periodicals.
Away from the office, Rich is a proud advocate for LGBT equality and gay and lesbian parenting and the Family Equality Council and provides community service in the medical, health and wellness industries. He is also an experienced fitness instructor, triathlete, a former paramedic, and board member of a medical device company. Rich and his spouse, Tommy Woelfel, were married in California in 2008 and are the proud parents, through egg donation and surrogacy, of twin sons Aiden and Austin.
License:
CA State Bar # 214095
2001 to Present, Active Member, State Bar of California
IL State Bar # 6217167
1993 to Present, Active Member, State Bar of Illinois
Degrees:
1993, Juris Doctor, Loyola University Chicago - School of Law
1990, B.S., Miami University of Ohio
Professional Affiliations:
American Bar Association
American Fertility Association
American Society for Reproductive Medicine
California Bar Association
Los Angeles County Bar Association
Family Equality Council
National LGBT Bar Association
