Hello, I'm Kenny Leigh of Kenny Leigh and Associates. Our firm exclusively represents men and family law, that's all we do. I'm here with Kent Griffin a senior associate at our Jacksonville office and today we are going to talk about paternity. Kent can you just give a very brief explanation of what paternity is?

Section 61.20 of the Florida statutes provides that if the court orders a social investigation and study in any action where a parenting plan is at issue, the court may consider the information contained in the study in making a decision on the parenting plan, and the technical rules of evidence do not exclude the study from consideration.

In a divorce action, the property must be distributed.  There is usually some type of equitable distribution worksheet that is done during the proceedings.  To separate property, assets and liabilities have to be determined. It has to be determined whether these assets and liabilities are marital or not.  

The rules contained in the Florida Evidence Code apply to all family cases.  The requisite evidence may be established by lay or expert testimony, so knowing when each is proper and how to qualify someone as an expert is imperative.  Demonstrative evidence, reports, or summaries may also be used, so it is also important to know how to admit those as exhibits.

If there has been an order for time-sharing, basically saying one parent gets custody and the other parent gets visitation, or any form of dividing up of the child’s time, a parent cannot just unilaterally move a child a significant amount away from another parent.