This study investigated effects of a New York City adoption reform project. Goals of project were to change existing family court procedures in selected cases to shorten duration of time between termination of parental rights (TPR) and adoption finalization. Randomly selected control cases received usual procedures, whereas service group received expedited court procedures. The latter consisted of filing adoption petitions at time of TPR, thereby keeping cases on court calendar and usually before same judge from point of freeing through to finalization. At conclusion of data collection, more children in service group than in control group had been adopted, and survival analysis showed that they were adopted in a significantly shorter time. Key words: adoption; court procedures; evaluation; foster care; survival analysis ********** Can keeping a case in same county, before same judge, and on court calendar from termination of parental rights (TPR) through adoption speed up adoption process for children in foster care? The study reported here sought an answer to this question. It did so by developing a project that implemented a little-used New York state law that permits filing of an adoption petition while TPR is pending. This allowed adoption proceeding to remain in same court and with same judge who presided over freeing. RESEARCH CONTEXT National policies in child welfare have produced major changes in adoption practice over past 25 years as child welfare field and public became more aware of children adrift in what so often has been called the limbo of foster care. These changes came after a number of studies highlighted fiscal and emotional consequences of children remaining in out-of-home care for long periods without permanent plans (see, for example, Fanshel & Shinn, 1978; Maluccio, Fein, Hamilton, Klier, & Ward, 1980). Concerns about children lingering in foster care led to efforts to reduce impermanence and spawned permanency planning movement (Rzepnicki, 1987; Smith & Howard, 1999). The philosophy of permanency was codified at federal level through passage of Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (P.L. 96-272). In years that followed, emphasis on permanency planning resulted in freeing, through TPR, of a growing number of children in foster care and their placement in homes likely to adopt. Adoption became preferred outcome over long-term out-of-home care for children who could not grow up in their birth families (Barth, 1997; Berry, 1998). Although adoptions of foster children remained fairly flat between 1983 and 1993, since then total number of such adoptions in United States has risen (Freundlich, 2000; Maza, 2000). With emphasis on permanency came a desire that it be reached in a timely way. Concern about time frames led to passage of Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA) (P.L. 105-89) that called for prompt establishment of permanency goals for children, emphasized importance of reaching permanence without delay, and permitted an award of adoption incentive funds to states (Maza, 1999). Thus, ASFA focused a spotlight on accelerating permanency, including speeding adoption process. To support permanency efforts, Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System routinely reports estimates of average number of months between TPR and final adoption among children adopted from public foster care system. Estimates for fiscal year 1999, based on 52 jurisdictions reporting on 46,000 adoptions, 64 percent of which were by unrelated foster parents, showed this average to be 16 months, and a median of 12 months (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2000). State efforts to speed adoptions range from Newark, New Jersey's system of reviewing all cases six months after TPR and scheduling hearings if adoptions have not yet been completed, to Portland, Oregon's best interests hearings, held after filing of TPR petitions in an effort to decrease number of TPR appeals (National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges [NCJFCJ], 2000b). …