Paternity
Reliable Advice About Missouri Paternity Law
At The Copeland Law Firm in Columbia, our primary family law attorney, Brandi L. Byrd, counsels unmarried parents about their legal rights and responsibilities for child support, child custody, and visitation. If you have questions about paternity as either a mother or a father, contact our office to get a clear understanding of your legal position.
Call 573-874-3100 for the answers you need about paternity
Paternity cases are usually initiated by an unmarried mother to establish and enforce a right to child support from the father, by a father to get custody of or visitation of his children, or by the state of Missouri to recover welfare benefits from the father. In any of these situations, the proof of parentage is most easily proven by a DNA test. For an unmarried mother, it is important to make sure the court orders the father to pay a fair amount of child support. For unmarried fathers, it is important to secure regular visitation rights, or even primary custody, and to establish a fair child support amount.
The child support obligation is fixed under the Missouri Child Support Guidelines, but the guideline payment can sometimes be increased or decreased based on the specific circumstances of your case. Ms. Byrd is skilled in identifying factors in each case she takes on that might affect the appropriate amount of child support that should be ordered.
If you are an unmarried father whose child support obligations have been established through paternity proceedings, you will not have an enforceable right to regular visitation until you seek a court order. Many of the fathers Ms. Byrd works with depend on us to protect their relationships with their children through petitions for visitation.
Ms. Byrd can also seek an order for primary physical custody of a father's children in cases where the mother can no longer provide a safe or stable home for the child. Child custody disputes are often drawn out and bitterly contested. Ms. Byrd can evaluate your situation and give you a good idea of the strength of your child custody claim.
To learn more about paternity under Missouri law, contact a family law attorney at The Copeland Law Firm in Columbia, Missouri.
