please read below...depserate...need help now

The lawyer seems to simply being truthful.  The problems your friend is experiencing are a result of his own inexcusable behavior and that of the mother as well.  You ask how a child can be left with a family without your friend's permission?  He abandoned the child and mother.  Someone stepped up and took care of a kid that was treated like leftovers or unwanted garbage.  What was the doing for the past three years that gives him the right to feel like a victim?  Wow, he never "denied" paternity!  That is like saying he doesn't deny giving an STD to his girlfriend.  Did he go into court and have his custody rights established?  Or to obtain parenting time?  Obviously not.  Even though he has not established anything but the barest rights with respect to the child, he is still a parent, and that cannot be taken away without his consent of court order.  A parent does need to consent  to either the adoption of the poor child or for the people who are taking care of the child to be granted defacto guardianship status.  But there is no allegation other than that both parents have acted reprehensibly.  I pity the child.  The sad thing is that this kind of horrible behavior occurs all of the time.  The courts are clogged with cases involving irresponsible parent who should never have children, but spawn them only to walk away.  Two years seems like a ling time, but certainly I would say this kind of case is rarely resolved in less than one year.  Fees have drained the Dad only because of what he has done.  Father is sober for a year!  Child was abandoned right after birth.  If I were representing the people with whom the three year old was living, I'd seek to have the parental rights of both parents terminated.  But only after they both paid child support.