By Attorney Max Stephenson

Establishing legal paternity is often a goal for unmarried mothers who want to ensure that their child’s father contributes to the child’s financial needs and well-being, but it can be just as important for unmarried fathers who want to secure the rights to be a part of their child’s life. If you are an unmarried father seeking legal paternity, a family law attorney can guide you through the process.

What Are the Benefits of Establishing Paternity?

Establishing legal paternity is often crucial for children because it allows them to receive support from both parents in the form of child support payments, health insurance coverage, access to family medical history, Social Security benefits, inheritances, and more. For fathers, legal paternity means they can pursue custody and visitation, contribute to parenting plan agreements, and be notified if a child’s mother wishes to place him or her for adoption.

By Attorney Max Stephenson

When you get a divorce with children under the age of 18, you and your spouse must address a wide variety of issues related to your children, including determining the amount of child support that each of you will be obligated to pay to provide for your children’s needs. Although a child support order will typically remain in effect until the child reaches the age of 18 (or 19 if the child is pursuing an accredited course of education leading to the acquisition of a high school diploma or its equivalent), you may be able to adjust your child support obligations under certain circumstances.

The Child Support Percentage of Income Standard

According to Wisconsin Administrative Code DCF 150.03, child support is determined by calculating a certain percentage of the payor’s income. The court will first determine the parent’s monthly income available for child support, which may be based on their actual annual gross income, imputed income based on earning capacity, or income imputed based on the assets they own. The percentage of this income that will go toward child support will be based on the number of children. For example, an obligor parent with two children will be required to pay 25% of his or her income in child support, whereas an obligor with three children must pay 29%. Parents may also be required to pay for additional child-related “variable” expenses, including health insurance, educational costs, and extracurricular activities. 

By Attorney Max Stephenson

Parents are required to financially support their children. When children live primarily with one parent, that parent is usually presumed to be supporting them, and the other parent will usually be required to pay child support. In 2017, The United States Census Bureau reported that around 20 million minor children in the United States live with one parent, making up 27.1 percent of all living arrangements for children. Determining the correct amount of support in these cases is essential, not only to ensure that children’s needs are met, but to ensure that the parents can maintain financial stability. No matter what side of a child support order you are on, the attorneys at Gimbel, Reilly, Guerin & Brown, LLP can help you reach an outcome that meets your needs.

Setting Support Amounts

In Wisconsin, child support obligations are typically determined using pre-set percentages based on the number of children being supported. According to the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families, the percentage of a parent’s income that will go toward child support are as follows:

By Attorney Max Stephenson

Issues related to child custody are often the most difficult part of a divorce. Parents must learn to balance not wanting to live under a different roof than their children and wanting the best for their kids. Determining the best way to address these issues can be challenging for a judge to determine. They must look at every facet of the child’s life and factor in each parent’s ability to meet a child’s needs. In most situations, parents will have shared or joint custody of their children. In these cases, parents will share in the right to make decisions about how to raise their children, and the children will typically spend significant amounts of time with each parent.

If you are a divorced parent, moving will likely be more complicated than finding a new home and packing up a moving van. That is because there are certain laws that apply when a divorced parent wants to move with their children to a new location.

In Wisconsin, the parental relocation laws were updated in April 2018. The new law provides that if both parents are granted any period of physical placement with a child, and one parent seeks to move with the child at least 100 miles away from the other parent, then the relocating parent must request permission for the move with the court.

The request to the court must include the following information: