In California, paternity is legally referred to as parentage. Establishing legal parentage can determine important rights and responsibilities involving your child, including custody, parenting time, and child support.
Stephen L. Cawelti is a California Board-Certified Family Law Specialist who helps parents throughout Los Angeles establish or challenge parentage and resolve the custody and support issues that can follow.
Parentage cases can determine much more than whose name appears on a birth certificate. They can affect a parent’s custody rights, parenting time, financial responsibilities, and relationship with their child.
Stephen L. Cawelti has practiced exclusively in divorce and family law since 2006 and has served as lead attorney on hundreds of family law matters. As a California Board-Certified Family Law Specialist, he understands how parentage intersects with the custody and support issues that often follow.
Our team’s approach is to identify what legally needs to be established first and build the rest of the case from there—whether that means establishing or challenging parentage, addressing custody, or resolving support.
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A parentage case asks the court to determine who is legally recognized as a child’s parent. Once legal parentage is established, the court can also make orders involving custody, parenting time, and child support.
Depending on the circumstances, legal parentage may already exist through marriage, adoption, a Voluntary Declaration of Parentage, or a prior court determination.
If legal parentage has not already been established—or if it is disputed—a parentage case can ask the court to determine who is legally recognized as a parent. Genetic testing may be ordered when appropriate.
Once the legal parent-child relationship is established, the court can make orders about legal custody, physical custody, and parenting time.
The court can also order child support and address other financial responsibilities involving the child.
Yes. In certain circumstances, California courts can recognize more than two people as a child’s legal parents.
This can happen when multiple people have a legal claim to parentage and the court determines that recognizing only two parents would be detrimental to the child.
These cases are highly fact-specific and may involve biological parents, presumed parents, assisted reproduction, or other established parent-child relationships. Determining legal parentage can affect important issues including custody, parenting time, and child support.
California generally uses the term parentage for the legal determination of a child’s parents. “Paternity” traditionally referred to determining a child’s legal father, while parentage is broader and applies to different family structures.
Establishing legal parentage creates important parental rights and responsibilities, including those involving custody, parenting time, and child support.
Not always.
Parentage can be established in different ways depending on the circumstances, and genetic testing is not required in every case. When biological parentage is disputed, a court may order genetic testing.
A DNA result alone also does not necessarily determine legal parentage. California law can recognize someone as a legal parent even when they are not genetically related to the child.
Potentially. A birth certificate can be important evidence, but whether someone is a legal parent does not always turn solely on whether their name appears on the birth certificate.
If you are not currently legally recognized as a parent, you may need to establish parentage before obtaining custody or parenting-time orders.
An attorney can help determine whether parentage has already been established and, if not, what legal steps may be necessary.
Once legal parentage is established, the court can make orders involving child custody, parenting time, child support, and other responsibilities involving the child.
Parentage therefore may be the first step rather than the final issue in the case.
In some circumstances, yes, but timing can matter significantly.
The options available depend on how parentage was originally established—for example, through a Voluntary Declaration of Parentage or a court judgment—and the circumstances of the case.
If you believe you were incorrectly established as a legal parent, or someone is challenging your parentage, it is important to seek legal advice promptly because strict deadlines may apply.