Legal Question in Family Law in California

Hopefully, for your daughter's sake, you and her mother's family can find a way to come together and help her through this loss. From a legal standpoint, though, if push comes to shove she's your daughter and you have the right to custody (assuming you don't have anything in your life that would make social services or a court take her away from you). The first thing to determine, though, is paternity. Did you and the mother file a declaration of paternity when the baby was born? Just being on the birth certificate is not necessarily enough. If not, have you had any other legal formalities that establish you as the father? If not, you will have to establish paternity before anything else. That will take a court proceeding and you will need a lawyer, especially if the mother's family wants to dispute it.