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Paternity Protects Fathers’ Rights

A father-friendly law firm helps dads establish and exercise their right to take an active role in their children’s lives. No one can take the place of a father in a child’s life. The Florida court system recognizes what social workers and child development experts have long known: Children do better when both of their parents take an active role in their upbringing.

Tired of your child’s mother dictating how, when and where you can see your child? As a father, you have the right to spend quality time and make decisions regarding your children. Call attorney Rebekah Brown-Wiseman at 954-563-1331 if you need help enforcing your rights.

Child Custody Visitation Schedules

The overall trend in child custody in Broward County, Florida has been to award mothers and fathers each 50 percent time with their child unless there was a reason that a different timeshare schedule was in a child’s best interests. Judges at the Fort Lauderdale courthouse examine each parent’s ability to meet their child’s developmental needs. Attorney Brown-Wiseman was a previous child therapist and has an education with a masters in social work with a concentration in children and families. She uses this experience to pin point how to litigate a parent’s ability or inability to meet a child’s developmental needs.

Father’s Rights And The Law

Many unmarried fathers believe they established their legal rights as a father if their name appears on the child’s birth certificate; however, this is a common misconception in Florida. Florida law provides unmarried mother’s 100 percent visitation rights to a child and sole decision making in reference to the child until such time as a biological father obtains an order establishing paternity and designating a parenting plan to set forth each parents right to time with the child and to make decisions related to the child.

If you were not married to the child’s mother at the time of the child’s conception or birth and even if you are an intact couple and residing together, you need to obtain an adjudication of paternity and a designation of a parenting plan in order to establish your legal right to participate in your child’s life and make decisions about his or her upbringing.

If you are an intact couple but not married, as a man you can amicably file a petition for paternity to let your partner know that you love and want to be the legal father of your child. You and your child’s mother can jointly agree to an order designating you the legal father that can also include provisions such as both parents have shared parental responsibility to make decisions for the child and in the event that you separate for each party to obtain 50% timeshare with the child.

Parental Responsibility Allocated In Parenting Plans

The Broward County judges shall order that the decision making for a child be shared by both parents unless the court finds that shared parental responsibility (where each parent must confer with the other parent and mutually make all decisions involving major decisions for the minor child) is detrimental to the child. If shared parental responsibility is not appropriate, the judges at the Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale will then consider whether it is in the child’s best interest to grant shared parental responsibility with decision-making authority (where both parents must discuss all major decisions but one parent has the right to make the final decision) or sole parental responsibility (where one parent makes decisions for the child without the legal obligation to discuss the matter with the other parent).

If parents do not get along and shared parental responsibility is not appropriate, child custody attorney Rebekah Brown-Wiseman can negotiate a parental plan to provide alternatives other than an all or nothing approach such as designating that each parent have different decision making authority rights such as designating one parent with medical decision authority and the other parent with educational decisions authority.

Paternity Testing Arrangements

A paternity case is by definition a case that involves child custody, parental responsibility and child support with parents that are unwed. In a paternity case, parents can agree that the dad is the legal father of the child or a paternity test can be performed. If you are unsure whether you are the father of a child, and you would like to obtain a paternity test, contact a lawyer today. Attorney Rebekah Brown-Wiseman can make arrangements for a paternity test that will help affirm or dispel your suspicions.

A Lawyer Who Stands Up For Fathers’ Rights

For more information about child custody attorney Rebekah Brown-Wiseman, please see her profile and visit the Fort Lauderdale law firm’s pages on child custody and high conflict child custody. If you are seeking an attorney who will stand up for a father’s rights in paternity, child custody, visitation, relocation, child support or any other area of family law, please contact the Law Office of Rebekah Brown-Wiseman, P.A., in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Call 954-563-1331 to arrange a consultation.

Attorney Rebekah Brown-Wiseman
  • 100 Percent Family Law Practice
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Long Standing Dedication to Family Law. Initially started in 1998 helping family law clients at Harvard Law School’s Hale & Dorr Legal Services.