Fathers rights attorney in Memphis, TN

Tennessee law is on your side more than you might think, and with the right father’s rights attorney, you can fight for the time and relationship with your children that you deserve. Working with an experienced family law attorney ensures that every legal avenue is explored to protect your role as a parent.

What the Law Actually Says

As a legal father in Tennessee, you have the right to be involved in major decisions about your child's education, healthcare, and religious upbringing. You have the right to access school records, medical records, and extracurricular information. You have the right to be notified before the other parent relocates with your child. And under T.C.A. § 36-6-101, you have the right to seek a parenting arrangement that gives you maximum participation in your child's life, not just every other weekend.

What the law says and what happens in a Shelby County courtroom don't always line up on their own, though. Some judges still default toward limited parenting time for fathers, especially without a strong legal advocate pushing back. That's where we come in.

Your Rights If You’re Going Through a Divorce

Your custody case will be filed at the Shelby County Corthouse at 140 Adams Avenue in downtown Memphis, through either Circuit or Chancery Court. From the very beginning, the choices you make about how to present your involvement as a father (your daily role, your relationship with your kids, your stability) will shape the parenting plan that gets established. It’s our role as a father’s rights attorney to fight for arrangements that actually represent who they are as a parent. This could mean equal parenting time, primary residential parent status, or making sure you have real decision-making responsibility over your children’s education, healthcare, and upbringing. We build your case with an intention to fight for your justice.

Your Rights If You’re an Unmarried Father

In Tennessee, when a child is born to an unmarried mother, she automatically has sole legal and physical custody. Being listed on the birth certificate is a good start, but it doesn't give you enforceable legal rights on its own.

Under Tennessee Code § 36-2-304, you need to formally establish paternity before you can petition for custody or parenting time. In Shelby County, that process runs through Juvenile Court, which has its own rules and procedures that are separate from the divorce courts at 140 Adams. Paternity can be established voluntarily through a Voluntary Acknowledgment of Paternity, or through a court-ordered DNA test if there's a dispute.

Once paternity is established, you can move forward with a custody hearing and a permanent parenting plan. The sooner you take that step, the sooner you have legal standing to be in your child's life the way you want to be.

What We Handle for Memphis Fathers

As your father's rights attorney, Psonya Hackett Law helps with:

• Custody and parenting plan disputes in divorce

• Equal or primary residential parent petitions

• Paternity establishment in Shelby County Juvenile Court

• Custody modifications when circumstances change

• Enforcement when parenting time is being withheld

• Relocation disputes—under T.C.A. § 36-6-108, the other parent must give you 60 days written notice before moving with your child, and you have the right to challenge it

Why Memphis Dads Work With Psonya

Psonya Hackett has over 26 years of family law experience across Tennessee and Mississippi. She holds a JD/MBA and is a CDC Certified Divorce Coach—which means she understands both the legal strategy and the human weight of what fathers go through in these cases.

She's represented dads all across the Memphis metro, from Midtown to Millington, Cordova to Collierville, in cases ranging from straightforward parenting plan negotiations to high-conflict custody battles. As a father's rights attorney, she's direct with you about where you stand, builds a strategy around your life, and advocates hard for the outcome your children need.

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