A father has many legal rights and responsibilities to his child or children. However, for one reason or another there may be a paternity issue of some kind that requires an attorney to be hired. These issues vary greatly, but hiring an attorney will be ensure that paternal issues are worked out and things are legally as they should be. This article will discuss 3 reasons to hire an attorney for paternity issues.
Testing For Paternity
If you are a woman seeking to prove that a man is the father or your child, or a man seeking to prove that you are not the father of a woman's child, you may need to hire an attorney to prove this. Often times child support is going to need to be provided if you are the father of a child, so it is crucial that the issue is resolved. An attorney will use DNA from the mother, the child, and the potential father to see if he is indeed the father. If he is the father, he has custody rights and will need to pay child support, which may also need to be worked out in court.
Child Support and Custody
Often times there are issues regarding child custody and child support that need to be worked out in court. The father of the child will be required to pay some amount of child support for each child that he has. This is to help the mother have the finances that she needs to raise the child. Also, if a father would like to gain custody of his child, or gain more custody of his child, this will also often need to be worked out in court by an attorney. The background history of the mother and father will be looked into for this issue, and the attorney will do their best to represent their client's case.
Adoption
In the case of an adoption, there are a few different reasons why an attorney should be hired for paternity issues. For example, if the father of a newborn child doesn't agree to having their child adopted, but the mother does agree, they may need to go to court. Or if the father is absent in the life of the child that is to be adopted, the attorney will serve papers to this father to ensure that the adoptive parents won't have to deal with issues from him later. Lastly, in the case of a stepfather adopting his wife's children, he may need to go to court to prove he is a good father and to prove the children want to be adopted by him.
Contact a legal office like Law Office of Shelli Wright Johnson for more help.
