The court must also decide the amount of child support to be paid. Paternity - When persons who are not married have children and a case is filed in court to legally detemine the parenthood of the children, the court must decide legal and physical custody and child support just as it would in a divorce.
Adoption is a court action to change the legal parenthood of a child.
All legal ties to the biological parents are terminated, and the adoptive parents become the legal parents of the child for all purposes, just as if they had physically conceived and given birth to the child. Depending on the circumstances, it may also be necessary for the court to take physical custody, removing the child from the parents' home and placing the child with relatives or in foster care. Status cases, in which a child runs away from home, or is frequently truant from school, or is otherwise beyond parental control. When a child is involved in a court case, it is common for everyone involved to be represented by an attorney, except for the child . The role of Guardian Ad Litem is not exactly the same as being an attorney for the child.