Joanna Beck Wilkinson

Laura “Joanna” Beck Wilkinson has practiced exclusively in family-building law for more than 17 years. She began her career at a contested adoption firm in the San Francisco Bay Area and later worked at a boutique private adoption practice in Indianapolis before joining Professor Mary Beck’s practice in 2008. Today, Joanna is a founding member of Foster + Bloom Family Formation Law Group, where she is based in St. Louis, Missouri.

Joanna regularly guest lectures at Washington University School of Law and the University of Missouri School of Law, teaching in courses such as Adoption Law and Sex, Reproduction & the Law. She has spoken nationally and internationally at continuing legal education conferences and has authored articles for industry publications and bar journals on topics including pre-embryo practice and same-sex family formation. In 2022, Joanna co-authored a Brief of Amicus Curiae to the United States Supreme Court that was cited in the Court’s majority opinion. In 2024, she authored the Missouri Bar Deskbook chapter on parentage.

Joanna is licensed to practice in Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, and Kansas, as well as before the Supreme Court of the United States. She has been a Fellow of the Academy of Adoption & Assisted Reproduction Attorneys for more than 11 years, serves on Quad A’s Ethics Committee, and is Chair of its Membership Committee. She is also a member of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s Legal Professional Group and the American Bar Association’s Family Law Section (Assisted Reproductive Technology Committee).

Outside of her practice, Joanna enjoys jogging in Forest Park, cheering on the St. Louis Cardinals, collecting obscure French fashion, restoring her family’s 1904 World’s Fair home in St. Louis’ Central West End, and playing Uno with her four young sons, English setter puppy, and husband.