Establishment of Paternity Rights in Massachusetts

A paternity case refers to a case where the parents of the child have not been married. In that case, what happens is the father needs to file a complaint to establish paternity. If they’re on the birth certificate and what they do is they then sign an acknowledgement of paternity and there’s a legal adjudication that they are the father of the child and they are treated as any other father would. The court does not treat the father who’s married to a mother any differently than a father who was not married to the mother. They then have the same rights of parenting and when a complaint to establish paternity does is establish the rights that that father has to the parenting plan and to establish his child support and anything to do with the child whereas of course, a divorce does all that plus establish the both parents’ rights.

This informational blog post was provided by Cynthia Hanley, an experienced Massachusetts Divorce Attorney.