My question involves name change laws in the State of: FL
I do have an atty but he is cheap and well takes a lot of time and is usually to busy to return calls. I currently reopened my divorce for modification. I am having it changed from shared parental responsibility to sole for myself. My Atty is so on the ball this has been going on since Aug. I feel like I have a public defender in the CJ world lol!
Here is the background in my case. My ex-husband and I split in 06 when our children were barely 5 and 8. I would have gone sooner but knew that he wasn’t going to stay around if I left him. I didn’t know I could file for CS without a divorce. He wouldn’t take the kids or help me in anyway when we split. So therefore I couldn’t file for divorce right away. I started working 2 jobs and taking care of two kids alone. He had consults with a few attys and then they wouldn’t see me. We had domestic violence and he spent some time in the county jail. He was given supervised visitation and he never took that. I met my now husband and we moved in together in June of 07. With his help I was able to file for divorce. My Ex had an expensive atty but even with that when you screw up you screw up and she could only do so much for him. He had zero visitations with the kids from Oct 06 until March 08. I was tired of the way things were dragging out and going. My Atty told me to give in to him on some things that if I was to ridgid I could lose the kids to him. Though he had tried to stab his father. His parents and sister were going to go to court for me. I wanted the divorce final so I settled against my best judgment. My atty also scared me to think he could get the kids full time. So he got every other weekend visits after a few weeks of no overnights. He took his every other weekend visitation from the middle of April of 08 until the end of Aug of 08. He missed a few weekends here and there. Meanwhile my current husband was there fulltime. I worked nights and he became dad. I never asked nor did he for my kids to call him dad they just started somewhere before the divorce was final. My husband coaches their sports and is a great dad. I was reluctant to remarry but became pregnant with our daughter so we married in April 2010. My now 10 year old can really only remembers my husband as her father. My 14 year old became bitter and doesn’t want anything to do with BIO dad. He is not anywhere around. He moved out of state and dropped all contact. My 14 year old wants her name changed but not as bad as my 10 year old. She wants the same name as me, her "dad" and her baby sister. I do not want to ask the courts to do a step parent adoption, I will admit this sounds selfish but. I want my ex to be held to some responsibility to help support our kids the ones that HE and I wanted. I do not want to let him off the hook so easy as he has tried to do by disappearing. How likely would it be that I can get the courts to change their name? In the current reopening of the case we had to do diligent search, and publication and no avail. My 10 year old has been trying to write a different last name on her paperwork etc. I have stopped her and she gets upset. UGH what to do what to do? I know that I do not want to use my atty again because my girls will be 18 and 21 before it gets done lol! Plus I figure once this modification is closed and shows that he never showed for diligent search or publication that it might be easier?

