Family Law

Shreveport Family Law Attorneys

Premarital Agreements

Some people think that if they have a prenuptial agreement, they are planning on getting divorced. This is far from the truth. By creating a prenuptial agreement, all you are planning to do is treat your property differently than how the state of Louisiana has decided your property should be treated.

The state of Louisiana has decided that everyone who gets married in this state should live under a community property system. However, through a premarital agreement, you and your spouse can jointly decide how to treat your property while married and in the unfortunate event of a divorce.

It is our opinion that everybody who gets married should consider whether a prenuptial agreement is right for them. Our lawyers often draft these agreements for business owners, people with children from a prior marriage, as well as people who have separate property they want to protect.

Paternity Actions

Our family law attorneys file paternity actions for both mothers and fathers of children born outside of marriage. Mothers often file a paternity action to seek child support payments from the father. Fathers may initiate a paternity action to receive visitation rights or to disavow paternity of a child in a divorce situation.

DNA results in a paternity action can be obtained in as little as seven days. Once paternity is established, our attorneys can help you seek child support or visitation rights in family court.

Mediation

Many courts issue an order of mediation when a divorce is filed, in order to encourage alternative dispute resolution. Mediation is often a means to minimize legal expense and to arrive at a resolution that is the product of the work of the parents, as opposed to being imposed by the court in a litigation setting.

Adoptions

Our lawyers handle intrafamily adoptions for step-parents and grandparents. In these cases, our lawyers are simply obtaining legal status for a parent-child relationship that already exists.

In any adoption, it's important to obtain a full and permanent termination of the biological parent's rights. In most of the cases we handle, the biological parent hasn't paid child support or communicated with the child in more than six months.

Our Family Law Attorneys

Free initial consultation: Contact a family law attorney at Weems, Schimpf, Gilsoul, Haines, Landry & Carmouche (APLC).