The founders of Legal Advocates for Permanent Parenting (LAPP) are experienced dependency lawyers who have cared for foster children in their own homes as foster, adoptive and kinship parents. LAPP attorneys were inspired by both their personal and professional experiences to create a program to ease the fostering, adoptive, and kinship experience for others.

Founded in 2003, LAPP was launched with the advice and support of attorneys, judges, and law professors – many of whom have also been foster and adoptive parents themselves. A number of LAPP's early advisors now serve on the organization's board of directors and advisory panel of experts.

LAPP's work is designed to address the need for legal information, training, referral and support for foster parents, relatives raising children, adoptive families, and their child welfare partners. LAPP works to improve communication between caregiver families and agencies, Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs), attorneys, and the courts and supports policies that ensure every child in foster care finds a permanent, loving family.