At the Law Offices of Beverly L. Brennan, P.A., we deal with nearly all issues within the general category of Florida family law. You might associate this field with marriage and divorce, but unmarried couples, particularly parents, often need to formalize certain matters through the court system.
One of the most frequent misconceptions we come across in our practice in this area is the idea that establishing paternity is equivalent to proving paternity. We often talk to people who have put off laying this important legal groundwork simply because they believe the process is arduous, complicated or expensive. Regardless of cost, we would often recommend completing this step to access several legal advantages that legal parent-child relationships could provide:
- Appropriate responsibility in terms of child support
- Better chances of quality contact with each parent
- Easier inheritance and shared benefits, such as insurance, pensions and social security
- Allowance of access to medical records
We find that fathers often agree to voluntarily admit paternity, probably because many of the aforementioned benefits are in the best interest of the child. In these cases, where paternity is established without being proven in court, we are often able to bypass some of the more costly elements of the process. You would not usually have to supply a DNA test if both partners agreed to establish paternity, for example.
We believe that unmarried couples and legal spouses alike deserve the same representation in Florida courts. Please take a look at our main page on paternity for more information.
