Santa Clara County Paternity Lawyer - John S. Yohanan

Many fathers find it advisable to formalize paternity and seek a legal custody arrangement in order to secure their rights to a meaningful relationship with their child. By doing so, fathers find that their access to their child is no longer dependent upon the state of their relationship with the child's mother, but is protected by the courts. It may also affect child support payments.

If you are a mother or a father with questions about your rights and responsibilities concerning paternity, child custody and visitation or child support, or if you're an unmarried parent with problems enforcing a child support order or child custody order, contact the San Jose law office of John S. Yohanan.

I am child custody attorney John Yohanan. I can explain the details of paternity testing, child support determination and enforcement, and the respective rights of unmarried parents.

Once we've established the identity of the father of a child through DNA analysis, child support payments will be set according to the same standards as in divorce. Each parent's income is considered, along with any special needs of the child, and the child support obligation is then calculated based on California child support guidelines.

Child support can later be modified to reflect any hardship circumstances of the unmarried parents.

One important difference between single fathers and divorcing parents is that no physical custody rights are granted to an unmarried father upon the establishment of paternity. This means that no matter how much time a father spends with his child, or how many nights the child spends at his residence, his child support obligation will not be adjusted downward to reflect his involvement in the child's life unless he obtains a court order approving a parenting time schedule that formalizes his share of the parenting responsibilities.

If a domestic violence restraining order is outstanding against the father, however, it will be very difficult to convince the court to grant him parenting time rights.

If you need an attorney's help to establish the paternity of your child or collect child support from an unmarried father, contact my family law office in San Jose for advice and representation.