My question involves adoption law for the State of: Arizona My son has almost completed a divorce from a 3yr marriage. In fact, their court date is on their 3yr anniversary, which is kinda sad! They had a son during their marriage, and have agreed their son will spend 51% with him, and 49% with her. He is in the Military and lives in Colorado, and the divorce is taking place in Colorado. She moved back to Arizona and currently lives there with the 4yr old daughter she had prior to their marriage. My son had planned to adopt her prior to his marriage falling apart, and still wants to go through with it. There is no father listed on her birth certificate, though the biological father is known and can easily be found through his family. What makes this interesting is that all 3 of them went to high school together, and knew each other through R.O.T.C! The biological father's Mother had alot of contact with the child during her first year, but not much after the Mother married my son and moved to Colorado. The biological father is basically uninterested, has never paid support, and seems happy with the status quo of not being involved in his daughter's life. The mother very much wants my son to adopt her daughter, after all, my son pays half her child care expenses though he is under no obligation to do so… Im sure she'd like that to continue. I cant say I think its a good idea for my son to adopt this child when all it means is he will be ordered to pay support, and will not have custody unless he goes through another court expense. With all that said, my question is can he adopt her under the step parent rules, or would this be a standard adoption? Can he even adopt when the child doesnt live with him, and he would only have some visitation schedule?

