I have a young lady wanting to give us her baby when its born and the father is unknown ,what and how do we go about doing this and protecting ourselves from getting hurt?

Yes, both parents have to sign over their parental rights, you can get these from the law library in a court house I believe. This way once they sign the child can be adopted. It should be $200.00 depending on your court house.
Good Luck!
~Loui

You need to talk to a lawyer.

BOTH parents need to sign away parental rignts, and if the father is unknown, then POSSIBLE fathers will have to have a DNA test--in other words, an attempt at locating the father HAS to happen.

Has this young lady had counseling? Does she understand what she will be giving up? Are you willing to have a contract with her stating the promises you're making her about seeing/getting information about her child down the years?

In reference to the above poster, though... I've NEVER heard of an adoption costing $200, and most certainly NOT when a bio dad needs to be located. Also, generally when you get to court to adopt, the baby needs to have an attorney ad litem that determines whether this is in the best interest of the child.

The reason even private adoptions need to go through this process (and it can get expensive) is because baby selling is illegal, and so is blackmailing someone into giving up their child. Yes, both of these things still happen, but having the courts involved keeps things a bit more on the up and up.