ATTORNEY PROFILES

Nidhi Desai is an attorney in private practice, practicing in the areas of assisted reproductive technology (ART) and adoption. She also 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. Additionally, she has been elected as a fellow to the American Bar Foundation, a global honorary society of attorneys, judges, law faculty, and legal scholars whose public and private careers have demonstrated outstanding dedication to the highest principles of the legal profession.

She has been instrumental in helping to craft local and national policy surrounding ART.  She 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, 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 co-coordinated 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.

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.

Marcy Miller began her practice in the field of reproductive law while maintaining a thriving estate planning practice at a small Chicago firm.  In 1999, Marcy left her law firm and established the law firm of Marcy B. Miller & Associates, LLC, in order to cultivate a specialty practice in reproductive technology, one of only a few firms in the Chicago area focusing solely on helping individuals build their families through all forms of assisted reproductive technology.  For over a decade, the firm represented thousands of clients, including intended parents, donors, surrogates and fertility centers, providing legal and practical advice in all types of reproductive arrangements.
 
After practicing law for a number of years, Marcy's own experience with infertility and in vitro fertilization has enabled her to understand the emotional and practical issues facing patients pursuing infertility treatment from a different, more personal perspective.  Her experiences have furthered her commitment to aiding her clients in all aspects of the third party reproductive process. 

Marcy has presented to reproductive endocrinologists and fertility center managers of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine regarding the legal aspects of reproductive technology with a focus on how these medical providers can help guide patients through not only the medical, but also the non-medical aspects of their reproductive arrangements. Marcy is a Fellow in the American Academy of Assisted Reproductive Technology Attorneys, as well as a member of the Illinois State Bar Association’s Family Law Section and the American Bar Association’s Assisted Reproductive Technologies Committee and the Chicago Bar Association.  Marcy graduated from the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana in 1992 with honors in political science and from Georgetown University Law Center in 1996.

ATTORNEY PROFILES - OF COUNSEL

VICTORIA (VICKY) BUSH-JOSEPH, a co-founder of the firm who retired in 2003, played a critical role in shaping the Illinois law that mandates insurance coverage for infertility. Vicky served as the Chair of Advocacy for RESOLVE of Illinois, and was a member of its Board of Directors for many years. Vicky, along with Terri Finesmith Horwich, drafted the Illinois Family Building Act and co-directed RESOLVE's lobbying campaign to pass the law, which requires insurance coverage for medical treatment of infertility. RESOLVE’s all-volunteer effort to pass the Family Building Act was hailed by then-Governor Edgar and legislative leaders as the single most successful grassroots legislative effort they had witnessed. Vicky and Terri were also primarily responsible for helping the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services design the Putative Father Registry, improving the adoption process in the wake of the Baby Richard case by making it easier to identify birthfathers.

Vicky is a Lecturer of Graduate Legal Studies at Loyola University Chicago's School of Law, where she teaches a seminar on adoption law, and is also a retired Fellow of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys. She wrote the chapter on “Practical and Financial Aspects” for IICLE’s 2011 Illinois Adoption Law Practice Handbook. Before beginning the practice of law concentrating on adoption and infertility issues, Vicky practiced law as in-house counsel for AT&T and Ameritech for ten years. Vicky graduated summa cum laude from Loyola University Chicago in 1978. She also received her law degree in 1982 from Loyola, where she was a member of the law review. Vicky became Of Counsel to the firm in 2003.

TERRI FINESMITH HORWICH is a founding partner and also Of Counsel to the firm. Terri, along with Vicky Bush-Joseph, was a principal drafter of the Illinois Family Building Act requiring insurance coverage for medical treatment of infertility. She has served as a member of several prominent advisory groups that recommended standards for the field of reproductive technology and is a retired Fellow of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys.

Terri completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Distinction in the Major (Psychology) and was also a Special Student in Social Policy Studies at Loyola University Chicago’s Graduate School of Social Work. She graduated cum laude from Northwestern University’s School of Law in 1984, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the law review.