Experts and fathers tell Georgia House panel legitimation process is costly, confusing

At a House study committee on the affordability and accessibility of Georgia’s legitimation process, family-law attorneys, Department of Human Services representatives and fathers told legislators the state’s rules for making an unmarried father the child’s legal parent are costly, inconsistent and often produce unintended consequences.

The committee heard that Georgia remains an outlier among U.S. states because it requires a separate ‘‘legitimation’’ process in addition to paternity establishment, a difference witnesses said drives expense and delay for fathers seeking parenting time and legal status.

‘‘Legitimation in Georgia is entirely too difficult, too complicated, too cumbersome for Georgians,’’ said Katie Harnell, a family law practitioner with about 20 years’ experience. Harnell walked the committee through how paternity and legitimation are treated as distinct legal tracks under current Georgia law and warned against simple, biologically‑based fixes that could produce other harms.

Regina Quick, general counsel and deputy commissioner at the Georgia Department of Human Services, said the separation of paternity and legitimation causes practical problems for the department’s child support work. ‘‘When that biological father who is about to be ordered to pay child support says, ‘I’m not being allowed to see my child,’ we have to say, ‘we cannot help you — this child is not legitimate,’ ’’ Quick said. She told the panel that establishing paternity for support purposes but not legal parentage leaves fathers without route to parenting rights.

Several witness recommendations echoed one another: - Reintroduce a reliable non‑judicial pathway to parentage tied to biological verification (the Uniform Parentage Act and voluntary acknowledgments were cited as reference points). - Centralize and make accessible any hospital or vital‑records forms; prevent those records from becoming functionally irretrievable. - Fast‑track uncontested cases, waive filing fees for indigent petitioners, and fund legal navigators/community programs to assist fathers in preparing and filing petitions.

‘‘Georgia is the only state that has this additional layer of legitimation for fathers,’’ said Karen Buzz of the Barton Child Law and Policy Center. She directed the committee to the Uniform Parentage Act as a model most states have used to allow voluntary acknowledgments of parentage and to harmonize rights that flow from a parentage determination.

Practitioners and advocates described multiple operational barriers in current practice: inconsistent handling across counties, expensive guardians ad litem or private attorneys, the need to serve respondents by sheriff (and related service costs), and difficulties obtaining hospital acknowledgment forms once they are filed in vital‑records systems. Alexis Platt, a senior partner at the Seaman Law Firm who has litigated legitimations, noted appellate litigation over administrative legitimation in the past and said judges and lawyers sometimes face contradictory record‑access rules.

Fathers and service‑provider groups told personal stories to illustrate the impact. Kenneth Braswell of Fathers Incorporated described program results and operational barriers his organization sees in the field: of roughly 900 fathers who completed the Gentle Warriors Academy since 2021, Braswell said 41 percent initiated or completed the legitimation process with program help and some 230 fathers completed petitions with assistance; many stopped short of filing for fear of escalating conflict when sheriff service notifies the child’s mother. ‘‘What should be a clear path to legal fatherhood becomes a maze,’’ Braswell said.

Several committee members raised narrower fixes during the discussion: allowing birth‑hospital acknowledgments to include an evidentiary genetic test before any administrative parentage is recorded; improving which court (juvenile or superior) hears original actions in particular circumstances; and ensuring juvenile‑court guardians or staff are trained if cases are shifted there. Witnesses cautioned that Georgia previously tried administrative legitimation and repealed that mechanism in 2016 after judges and practitioners reported serious unintended consequences, including problems with record access and fraud claims in a small number of inheritance‑type cases.

Committee chairman Barrett outlined next steps: the panel plans at least two more meetings this summer — one in Columbus (scheduled Aug. 13) and another in Augusta — and asked witnesses for model statutes, state comparisons and operational recommendations to inform legislative drafting. Several witnesses volunteered to supply state examples and written proposals.

The meeting combined legal analysis, program data and on‑the‑ground accounts from men who said they struggled for months to secure parenting time and a legal relationship despite establishing paternity. Witnesses urged that any reform preserve courts’ ability to protect children and guard against fraud while removing avoidable barriers that keep fathers from participating in their children’s lives.