Deepa Vasilakis
Partner, surrogacy and donation
Deepa writes and negotiates gestational carrier agreements and donor agreements, for intended parents and, in separate matters, for carriers.
Deepa came to family formation from contract work, and it shows: she reads an agreement the way a drafter does, looking for the sentence that two reasonable people could read two ways.
She works with intended parents and with carriers, never on both sides of the same arrangement, and keeps a short list of independent lawyers she trusts to represent the other side.
Deepa’s admissions and education
- Bar admissions
- California2010
- Courts
- California Court of AppealU.S. District Court, Central District of California
- Education
- J.D., Southwestern Law SchoolB.A., University of California, Berkeley
- Languages
- EnglishHindifluentGujaraticonversational
- Memberships
- Beverly Hills Bar Association
In her words
How I read a surrogacy agreement
I read it three times: once as the intended parents, once as the carrier, and once as a judge who has met neither. If any of the three readers would be surprised by a clause, we change it before anyone signs.
The agreements that fail are rarely the ones with a hard clause. They are the ones with a vague one, written in a warm week, that nobody wanted to make precise.
Write to Deepa
A short note about your plans is enough. Deepa will read it.