Philip “Jay” McCarthy, Jr. is one of Northern Arizona’s foremost leaders in adoption and family law and is a co-founding partner in McCarthy-Weston, PLLC, in Flagstaff, Arizona. Jay is admitted to practice law in the states of Arizona, Nebraska, Missouri, and Alaska. He is also admitted to practice in the Navajo Nation, White Mountain Apache, Yavapai-Apache, and Hopi Tribal Courts.
Jay was also awarded the Congressional Angels in Adoption Award in October 2013. Also in 2013, Mr. McCarthy was the recipient of the Volunteer Lawyers Program, Family Protection Attorney of the Year, Yavapai County. In 2015, Mr. McCarthy received the Adoption Service Award from the Florida Adoption Council.
Dana first met Jay about twelve years ago, around 2010 while working on an adoption with Building Arizona Families in Phoenix, Arizona. Sacred Selections typically brings Jay and McCarthy-Weston into an adoption case when the birth mother has a connection to a “Native American” tribe. Jay and his firm are the premier adoption attorneys in the country when there are connections to “tribal law and sovereign nation issues”.
In addition to Native American tribe matters, Sacred Selections has also collaborated with Jay on a few particularly challenging cases not related to these specialties. In every single case McCarthy-Weston and Jay particularly has been a partner, advocate and a relationship of immeasurable importance and success.
As Sacred Selections plans for the future, we reached out to Jay to share our appreciation for his and the firm’s longstanding history of support and success and to ask him to share his thoughts about our work together and the partnership that has been forged over time and through many challenges. We hope our commendation of McCarthy-Weston and Jay’s candid expressions of his perspective of Sacred Selections, the families we work with and the countless people that generously support the financial means by which these families are able to adopt, will encourage you to continue giving and praying for this ongoing work.
Here are Jay’s words:
“I can honestly say, in all my years of practice [since 1980] I have never seen or met an organization like Sacred Selections. Without Sacred Selections, I would not have had the privilege to do those [challenging] cases, that never would have probably had a chance, they would never have gone forward, because of how complicated they were and the cost. And to have Sacred Selections say, “No, this is what needs to be done for this child”. There’s just no one else that does that.” You know, I’ve been in this forty-years, it isn’t like I’m some ‘newbie’. “
It isn’t just Sacred Selections as an organization, the families that they work with and bring to the table to help these children are equally remarkable and impressive. Their patience and perseverance throughout the emotional ups and downs and through all the uncertainty is amazing. When I am approached to help in a unique or challenging case, I often call Dana because I’m very confident she and Sacred Selections are up for the challenge, and she will have connections to a great family that will step forward.
Jay McCarthy Jr. Attorney
Co-Founder McCarthy-Weston PLLC.
