Legal Question in Family Law in California

Re: Paternity and custody

Under California law there is probably little that he can do at this time. To obtain a wage assignment there must be a court order for support. A support order either directly or indirectly established paternity. Unless mother is willing to allow a paternity test it will be difficult to get a court order.

You should determine how the court order for support was obtained. If it was done through the then district attorney's office or now family support division, then you will need to file a paternity action. On the petition give the number of the family support case. Also file a motion to establish visiation. He should be able to get some visitation. You will have to start with short visits and work your way up to longer visits.

Visitation is a factor over which he has some control that will have the greatest affect on his child support obligation. As the per cent of visitation goes up support goes down.

You can find the necessary forms at accesslaw. Click on the judicial counsel section and then scroll down to the section on paternity. To research this go to the local law library and look at the Rutter Group book on family law, Adam and Savetch? or Mathew Bender may still publish books on family law.

Re: Paternity and custody

How could the mother have gotten child support without a successful paternity suit? Or at least a settlement of such a suit. Did he make a voluntary declaration of paternity at the child's birth? I am assuming there is such a court order finding paternity and ordering child support, and he needs to go back to court and seek to compel a dna test if she won't go along with it. If he used a condom and only had sex with her once, the odds of his being the father are near zero. He can't have it both ways, though; if he is found not to be the father, he will not only not get joint custody, but he will not even get visitation rights. To effectively get both, he would have to get the same attorney to attempt to have him appointed the child's legal guardian, which will also require proving she is essentially an unfit mother.

As to his inability to afford an attorney, he needs to think about the cost of paying child support for someone not his child. DNA tests are not free, either. I doubt he will find a free attorney to help him out of this, but he really needs one, and it sounds highly probable that in the long run it will be cheaper than paying child support for another man's child for the next 10 years.