If an unmarried father is already paying support, is it necessary to establish paternity?
The establishment of paternity is not only to receive child support. If a father is already paying child support, he must, nonetheless, file a petition for paternity because the petition for paternity is what establishes and provides that father with parental rights. Without establishing paternity, the mother can pick up and move, and the mother could have somebody else adopt the child, the mother can totally exclude the father from any participation in that minor child's life without an order of paternity, which is only brought into effect following the filing of a petition for paternity.