Are there any advantages to filing first in a divorce or paternity (parentage) case?  The answer is no.  The only “advantage” you gain is that you control if the divorce or paternity petition is withdrawn…and even that has some limitation.  You gain the obligation of appearing when the Divorce Judgment is entered (the defendant does not).

I suppose there is some personal satisfaction by being the “Plaintiff” instead of the “Defendant” in a divorce case, but as for your legal rights, what you can receive in the Judgment, the answer is clearly “No.”

MAYBE, if there’s a jurisdictional issue there may be some advantage to filing first–as long as your county has jurisdiction over the defendant.  So long as you file your divorce or paternity (parentage) case in a county that has jurisdiction over one of the parties, jurisdiction will be “locked” in that county, which may be inconvenient to the other party.