Biden, 49, was not in the second-floor courtroom in Batesville, Arkansas, when his attorney former Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel quit.
But Lunden Roberts, 28, the woman who claims the son of former Vice-President Joe Biden fathered her child, was seen for the first time since filing her paternity suit, sitting in the front row of the spectators' gallery wearing three-inch black heels.
Biden is said to have met Roberts when she was working as a stripper in a 'gentlemen's club' in Washington D.C.
In the hearing, Judge Don McSpadden said he would need at least three years of Biden's tax returns before he could reach a decision on monetary support for the child, whose sex has not been revealed.