Jacksonville Paternity Lawyer
Compassionate Jacksonville Paternity Attorney Ready To Assist You
Our Jacksonville paternity lawyer helps parents and families take action to establish the paternity of children along with time sharing, child support, health insurance and other related issues. We know that a paternity determination can have a serious impact on your relationship with your children and your life, in addition to your parental rights.
In our attorney’s more than twenty-five years of family law experience, there are two reasons why mothers or alleged fathers request paternity tests. The mother is seeking support from the person who she believes is the child’s father, or the father is attempting to establish parental rights. Alternatively, a mother or alleged father is attempting to disprove paternity to deny parental rights or to avoid paying child support.
If you believe that you are not the father of a child that has been alleged to be yours, Florida law allows you to challenge child support through a paternity action in certain circumstances. You and the child may need to submit to DNA testing to prove or disprove the relationship. Our Jacksonville paternity lawyer can assist in scheduling the tests with the child’s mother or legal guardian.
How You Establish Paternity
Generally, a child born to a married couple is legally the child of both parents. For children born outside of marriage or whose mothers are married to someone other than their biological father, you usually need to establish paternity.
Legal Options
A child’s mother or possible father than initiate a legal action to establish paternity. Also, a child under certain circumstances is also allowed to initiate such an action. If the parents are not married but agree on who the father is, they may list the father on the child’s birth certificate and think paternity is established. This step alone isn’t enough to establish paternity.
Instead, to establish paternity, a parent may:
- File a paternity case in court;
- Complete an affidavit acknowledging paternity or a stipulation of paternity signed by both parents and submit it to the clerk of court where one or both parents live; or
- Complete an affidavit, a notarized voluntary acknowledgment of paternity, or a voluntary acknowledgment of paternity witnessed by two individuals and signed by both parents and witnesses under penalty of perjury and submit it to the Florida Department of Vital Statistics.
Certain other court cases may also establish paternity if this is raised as an issue. Those cases include hearings related to inheritance, Department of Revenue proceedings, and who a person’s dependents are for purposes of workers’ compensation benefits and similar programs.
Proof of Paternity
If the parents correctly complete a document acknowledging paternity and submit it to the appropriate government agency, that document serves as proof of paternity. To be legally valid, both parents must sign the document and follow the requirements under Florida law for the particular type of document.
Otherwise, if the parents disagree about who the child’s father is, you typically have to initiate a paternity court case. Proving paternity in a court proceeding usually means completing DNA testing. If testing reveals the possible father is the biological father, a court then declares him the legal father, amending the child’s birth certificate and granting the father the rights and imposing the obligations that legal fatherhood entails.
How Paternity Relates to Child Support and Custody
Child Support
Florida law states that a child’s parents must support the child at least until the child turns 18. If the child is still enrolled in high school when the child turns 18, the obligation generally lasts until the child graduates. This support obligation only exists for children the law recognizes as yours. So, establishing paternity means establishing the obligation to support the child.
Child Custody
Parents have greater custody rights than anyone else. Once you ask the government to treat someone as the child’s father, that father gains the rights of a parent, including the right to custody or, at least, visitation.
Benefits of Establishing Paternity in Florida
In Florida, many important rights come with being a parent. However, without formal recognition of your status as the child’s father, it may be difficult or even impossible to do things that most fathers take for granted.
Likewise, legal recognition of parental rights can confer important benefits on the child, the mother, and the community as well.
Benefits to the Child
Once paternity is established, the child:
- Benefits psychologically from knowing who their father is and having their father’s status explicitly established by law;
- Can include their father on their birth certificate, school records, and other important documents;
- Can be added to their father’s health insurance;
- Can access their father’s medical history to anticipate genetic conditions better;
- Becomes an eligible beneficiary of the father’s life insurance, disability benefits, and similar programs;
- Becomes eligible to inherit from their father if the father dies without a will; and
- Can spend time with and get to know their father.
Ultimately, the child often benefits the most from establishing paternity.
Benefits to the Father
Once paternity is established, the father:
- Can spend time with and get to know his child;
- Can participate in raising the child and weigh in on decisions about their education, medical care, and moral or religious upbringing;
- Gains access to the child’s medical and school records; and
- Becomes the child’s parent if legal questions arise.
Ultimately, establishing paternity in court means the father does not have to worry about losing his relationship with his child, regardless of the relationship between the mother and father.
Benefits to the Mother
Once paternity is established, the mother:
- Can access the father’s medical history;
- May request child support to help cover costs associated with raising the child;
- Gains someone who may provide direct care for the child through custody or visitation; and
- Gains a co-parent with legal rights to the child should something happen to her.
Even if the mother and father have a difficult relationship, establishing paternity still benefits the mother in many cases.
The Importance of Sensitivity, Discretion, and Compassion
Florida paternity suits and child support actions often involve highly delicate and sensitive situations. In addition to the important legal interests at stake – many of which may echo throughout a lifetime and beyond – there is a very real emotional component to these cases that must not be ignored.
As a Jacksonville father’s rights attorney, Rebeccah Beller is committed to providing clients with compassionate, confidential, and effective legal representation. We fight for our clients’ rights, and we do everything in our power to advance their best interests. But we also look for opportunities to do that in a way that will keep costs down and won’t inflict unnecessary hardship or strife on the family or the child.
Through more than twenty-five years of experience in family law, our Jacksonville paternity lawyer has developed strategies for deftly navigating even the most challenging and sensitive family dynamics. That’s the difference that substantial experience can make.
Do We Have to Go to Court?
Even for unmarried couples who are together when the child is born and do not dispute either party’s parentage, a legal instrument is still required for establishing parentage. The birth certificate is not enough.
Accordingly, actions for establishing paternity in Florida follow the same process as most other civil lawsuits in our state. The petitioning party files a formal complaint with the court and serves notice of the complaint on the other party. Then both parties must follow the timelines and rules of the procedure going forward.
However, in many cases, there is a lot that a Jacksonville paternity lawyer can accomplish through negotiation outside of court to help expedite the process. This might mean resolving disputes, arranging for DNA tests, or communicating with the other person’s lawyer, among other measures.
A Focus on Timely Results
As with most legal disputes, paternity lawsuits and child support actions can take some time. Often, however, families are eager to resolve the matter sooner rather than later — often due to a pressing legal concern, a major life event, a change in the relationship between the mother and father, or simply out of a desire to avoid prolonged heartache for the family.
A dedicated Jacksonville paternity lawyer from Beller Law, PL, will understand the importance of timely results. While it isn’t always possible to predict a timeline, and while no one can guarantee a specific outcome, we do everything we can to make the paternity process efficient and effective.
This helps to make our services more cost-effective and to make your life less uncertain during this challenging chapter.
We Represent Fathers and Mothers
No two cases are quite alike. Every situation is different. Paternity actions usually involve two parties (the mother and the father), and both sides are entitled to legal representation.
Our Jacksonville father’s rights lawyers believe in the rights of fathers in a court system that doesn’t always protect them as comprehensively as it should. We also believe that mothers have an important interest in these cases, as does the child.
Whatever your role in the paternity or child support case might be, we are here to help. You can count on your Jacksonville paternity law firm to go after your best possible outcome.
Contact Our Law Office About Your Jacksonville Paternity Concerns
Our Jacksonville law firm also handles clients with other types of cases, including:
- Divorce Matters,
- Uncontested Divorce,
- Collaborative Law,
- Modification,
- Prenup and Postnuptial Agreements,
- Estate Planning Matters,
- Estate & Probate Litigation,
- Wills and Trusts,
- Probate, and
- Guardianship.
Our law office is available for confidential consultations at our Florida law office by calling (904) 288-4414. Contact our lawyer today.