Child Support

When a child is born, both the mother and father have an obligation to support the child financially.  When a mother and father are living separately and not financially supporting the child together, child support is ordered to ensure that both parties are contributing to the financial needs of the child.  The child support lawyers at Overmann Family Law assist clients during the process of determining the initial child support obligation.

Both the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the State of Ohio have guidelines for calculating child support.  The guidelines are based upon each parent’s income (or their earning capacity) and the number of children to be supported.  In some cases, a parent may ask the Court to deviate from the state’s child support guidelines because the amount is inappropriate or unfair, or because the parties make more money than the guideline considers.  In other cases, there may be an issue of establishing the amount of income for one or both of the parents. This can occur when one parent only works sporadically, is self-employed, is underemployed, or runs a cash business.  The Overmann Family Law child support attorneys represent both fathers and mothers to ensure that the amount of support ordered is correctly calculated.

After the initial determination of the child support obligation, there is often a need to review or modify the child support amount when there are changes with either of the party’s careers or the parenting time arrangement.  Overmann Family Law assists clients through these post decree child support situations.

Paternity Cases

When parents are not married at the time of a child’s birth it is necessary to establish paternity in order to create a parent-child relationship between the child and father.  Establishing paternity is required before any child support or custody and parenting issues can be addressed.  A DNA test (also referred to as a paternity test) may be performed in order to determine whether a man is the biological father of a child.  Should the parties agree to paternity without the necessity of a paternity test, the parties may enter a judgement of paternity, that is recognized by the court.  Overmann Family Law attorneys can educate clients on the process of establishing paternity and legal benefits and consequences of doing so. Overmann Family Law represents fathers and mothers in child support and paternity cases.