In family law, oftentimes a lawyer needs to determine who will be listed
as the father on a birth certificate, or he or she needs to establish the
identity of a father for purposes of child support. This is when attorneys like
Marshall Davis Brown help clients arrange a paternity test.
This test uses genetic information to find the most probable match
between a possible father and a baby. It can also be used to show when an
individual is very unlikely to be the father of a child prior to a birth. While
attorneys often arrange paternity tests after a court order, some prospective
clients may want to get a test on their own before retaining a lawyer.
The obvious first step, but one that many people fail to take, is to find
a clinic or other facility that offers paternity testing. These are listed in
the yellow pages, but these days, a quick local Internet search will turn up
any facilities in one's area along with their contact information.
After a location to get a test done is found, Marshall Davis Brown
recommends that anyone who needs to be tested be contacted and instructed on
what to do. This would be the mother, the child, if he or she is of age, and
all prospective fathers. The possible fathers and the child are the most
important people to test, but the mother is often tested to establish her own
genetic relation to the child in question.
Going to the clinic is the simplest option for many people, but tests can
also be ordered online and the samples sent back by mail. No matter where the
test is administered, however, paternity test results are 99 percent accurate.
Attorney Marshall
Davis Brown believes that everyone involved in a paternity test should seek family
counseling after the results are known. This can help soothe the emotional
trauma of a father not being whom one expects or paternity being established
when it was not previously desired.