Sol (00:01)
Welcome to Coparenting Beyond Conflict. I'm your host, Sol. Today, I'm joined by David Pissara,

long-time family law attorney, author of Dad's Child Custody Action Plan, and the founder of Dad's Law School. If you've ever felt outgunned in family court, or you're unsure how to show a judge that you're the engaged parent, this one's for you. We talk calmness over anger, evidence over opinions, and how to build the support you need so that you can advocate for your kids with confidence. You'll walk away from today's conversation with practical tools that you can use in court and at home.

Let's dive in.

Sol (00:34)
David, welcome to Coparenting Beyond Conflict. How are we finding you today?

David Pisarra, Esq. (00:37)
Thank you. I'm great. It's a wonderful day here in Santa Monica.

Sol (00:40)
You've been a family law attorney, you're an author, and now you're a founder of Dad's Law School. What is the moment that you realized that this was a calling of yours to support dads in this way?

David Pisarra, Esq. (00:51)
Boy, that's a hard question because I don't know that there's been one moment, it's sort of been an evolution. I started practicing law 26, 27 years ago and I wanted to do business law. I wanted to go out and be captain of industry and help entrepreneurs get really rich and successful. And my partner wanted to do family law and my immediate reaction was, ew, gross.

But I would go to the Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club and the Elks Club because my job is to go out and beat the bushes. And I would do my little dog and pony show and nobody wanted to talk to me. But I would say at the end, my partner does family law and it would just be this onslaught of people. And what happened was his calendar got really full and then it spilled into my calendar.

And before I knew it, I didn't have a whole lot of business clients, but I had a whole lot of family law clients. And that was sort of the genesis of Men's Family Law because we started looking at it about five years in and I realized like, am just toxic. I am burnt out, but I got to figure out how to reconfigure this. So I made a list of clients I liked and clients I didn't like. And I wanted to find what were the similarities. And it was pretty obvious because it was like boys on the left and girls on the right. I'm like, well, that's interesting.

And what I saw was when a man comes into my office, they have certain expectations, they got like four questions, they want to just get it over with as quick as possible. And when mom comes in, it was, "I want all the money, I want all the kids, I want them in jail, I want them turned into the IRS, I want, I want, I want, and I don't have any money, you got to go get it from him." And so it was pretty obvious for me, okay, who are the clients I like dealing with and what was a good business model? And so we started Men's Family Law.

And over the last 17-20 years, what we've noticed is there are fewer and fewer divorces because there are fewer and fewer marriages, but people are still having children. So I would be in court and I would see men go up to the judge and they would try and argue for time with their kids. And they would say, "I'm a great dad. I love my kids." And they would lose. Because the reality is you're not actually saying anything. You're not giving the judge any information when you say "I'm a great dad."

It's a pretty broad statement and no one in the history of humanity has ever walked into court and said, "Your Honor, I'm a pretty piss poor parent. I never really show up, but I don't really know my kids very well, but I want to have 50 % custody." Like that's not going to happen. So what I saw was an ongoing increase in dads who want more time with their kids, but they don't know how to advocate for themselves. And so as a consequence of that, I decided to start Dad's Law School

where we've got online courses that teach dads how to represent themselves, how to make an argument to the judge. What's the information that that judge is going to be looking for? And so with that became a book called Dad's Child Custody Action Plan. And you start with the book because it's a very easy read of here's basically what you need to tell the judge. And then we get them to move into Dad's Law School where it's

how to gather evidence, how to then use that evidence. We have weekly support groups, group coaching, where dads can come in, we discuss their case, they ask questions, we work on their strategy, we work on their language so that when they're ready to go in and talk to the judge, they've practiced enough that they're okay talking in front of the judge because public speaking is scary. will read as anger sometimes with men, but now they've got a script.

Now they know what to do to tell the judge why they're a great dad. And so they're going to walk out with at least a better deal than if they walked in and just said, "I'm a great dad" and nothing more.

Sol (04:13)
Yeah, and is it fair to say, David, too, that there's maybe, depending on the court, there is slant away from the father and more towards the mother when it comes to child custody?

David Pisarra, Esq. (04:24)
I think that that's certainly true in some cases. I think the more common scenario is mom comes in with a stack of information. You know, one of the things we know is, is women tend to collect information about men from the first date going forward. So everything you've ever done wrong is going to get thrown back in your face in an argument. And going into court, they're going to use that information.

And they're going to come in and they're going to say, he doesn't know the kids' teachers. He doesn't know their food allergies. He doesn't know their food likes. He doesn't know their best friends. He doesn't even know their shoe size. And dad's walk into court and unless they have the information ready to go, they're kind of caught flat-footed and like, well, why does that matter? the reality is judges want to know that you have an engaged relationship with your kids.

So when you're going into family court, if you've got one parent who's coming in who's sort of like, I'm the primary parent, the other one doesn't know anything about the kids, the judge is gonna look at those two people and say, okay, who's gonna get more time with the kids? Who's best serving those children's needs? Well, obviously the one who's more vocal is going to win because they're gonna be answering that judge's question. And so what I'm trying to do is balance that out by giving dads the tools they need to look at the relationship they have with their kids and then express that

to the judge in a way that they can then be understood to be the great dad that most dads are.

Sol (05:44)
Yeah, that makes sense. We recently had Greg Wheeler on the podcast and he brought up this point that men sometimes struggle just creating that social support network when they're going through divorce. And curious, do you see this in your work and how does it play out in the legal context?

David Pisarra, Esq. (05:55)
Ugh.

So there's two ways it plays out. The first is men who are going through this generally become very isolated. Oftentimes in the relationship, they've been isolated from their own friends because they start socializing with mom's friends because she's in charge of the social calendar and she doesn't like your friends. They're losers, they're lazy, they're bad influences, whatever. So you're not going to be socializing with them. So that support network kind of falls by the wayside. And then when the relationship with mom breaks up,

well, her friends don't want to talk to you anymore because all they've been fed is a constant stream of how lazy, abusive, negligent you are, deadbeat dad, horrible person, she hates you. not going to want to do that. So now you've got a man who has lost his own friends, lost the social network that he was operating under. Oftentimes family gets attacked in this. The family will turn against dad.

And now he's left with, I've lost my relationship. I've lost contact with my kids. It's costing me a ton of money to go into court. I'm financially destitute. I may be living in my truck because many times that happens. They start to get into the downward spiral of depression. That then leads them to feeling overwhelmed and not knowing what to say, how to argue in court. They're not showing up as their best self. So as a consequence,

they end up losing in court, which then increases the downward spiral. Now, the other thing that we're seeing is when dads are going through that sort of isolation and loneliness, there's an increase in lethality. They become more suicidal. And so one of the reasons why we created Dad's Law School and why we have weekly meetups is because dads need that emotional support. And what we've done is we pulled dads together and once a week at four o'clock on a Thursday,

a bunch of dads are gonna get on a Zoom and we're gonna talk about what's going on in their case, what's going on in their life, how are they handling it, and they're gonna support each other. And then we also have a WhatsApp group so that in between weekly meetups, dads can communicate with each other. "Here's what's going on. I lost in court, I won in court, I'm dealing with this, she's saying that, my kids are doing this, how do you guys handle it?" And they support each other through text.

And then when it gets really important, they'll actually pick up the phone and help each other. So it's a dad's support group. It's a group coaching. It's an education model. Dad's law school is designed to give dads the tools they need to navigate these rough waters.

Sol (08:14)
That's great. You know, speaking from my own personal experience, it took the beginning of the end of my marriage for me to even consider going into therapy for the first time. And then that has become a really big part of my life, of having a therapist in my life that is helping me through all these challenges. I think it is difficult for us men to be willing to be vulnerable enough to step in that type of setting.

David Pisarra, Esq. (08:35)
Well, it's an interesting dynamic because what I've noticed is this: most heterosexual men, when they get vulnerable in their relationship, that vulnerability is weaponized against them. So the woman that they're supposed to be vulnerable and emotionally available to uses those things against them. So they kind of shut down in the relationship and they're told there's this myth that society pervades that

if a man opens up and is vulnerable, he's going to be seen as weak. He's going to be attacked by other men. And my personal experience with this is that's a bunch of BS. The guys come into our support group, they open up, they start sharing what's going on. They've all been through it and they don't get attacked. What they get is supported. I'm in a couple of different men's groups and I've seen time and time again, a man will get up in front of a room full of 60 other men,

start sharing what's really going on, the emotions overtake him, some tears start to come out. He tries to suppress them because he thinks that it's not manly. The room erupts with support and he walks away better.

will actually support each other when you create the right environment for it. That's what we do at Dad's Law School.

Sol (09:41)
That's great. I'm a member of the Mankind Project and that, yeah, it's a great program. You you're talking about your experience working with men and I know you also are an advocate for self-representation. I'm curious if we could talk more about that. We recently had Lisa and Chris from Been There Got Out and they're big advocates for representing yourself and saving that cost.

David Pisarra, Esq. (09:45)
love mankind project.

Sol (10:02)
What would you say is the biggest benefit of going that route?

David Pisarra, Esq. (10:05)
Well, aside from the obvious cost savings, which is tremendous in some of these cases, what people spend on divorce and custody battles is just in many cases, just absurd. The thing that I see is when a man comes into Dad's Law School and starts getting the tools, learning how to write to the judge, create a declaration that expresses who they are, learning how to get discovery, learning how to actually use discovery because we teach,

once you have an exhibit, now how do get that exhibit actually admitted as evidence of the judge will rely upon it. And that's where a lot of people fall short. As they come into court with, I've got 300 text messages proving she's gatekeeping. Okay, that's great. Judge isn't going to look at those because you've got to lay each one out as an exhibit, lay a foundation, get it admitted, and then the judge will read until that process happens, all you're doing is kind of saber rattling

but you're not actually making any progress. So when dads actually go through this, they end up with a much greater sense of self-esteem. They become more confident. Now they're more capable. They're able to walk into a room of a judge, a bailiff, a judicial assistant, 10 people in the gallery, and confidently express to the judge who they are, why they're a great father, and then walk out. Even if they've lost, they feel better because they've represented themselves.

as a result of that, they're now actually more capable and more confident in life in general, and they're picking up new skills. One of the best skills somebody can learn is how to speak publicly. It's one of the things we work on at Dad's Law School is how to actually handle yourself when you're in front of an audience and speaking to them. Sometimes it's an audience of one who's a judge, but it could be an employer, it could be a sales team. all

types of opportunities where public speaking is gonna come in handy. And by getting that practice in family court, you can now use that in the rest of your life.

Sol (11:57)
That's such a great point. I mean, if you can get up there on the witness stand and advocate for your needs confidently and walk away with a good judgment, what a confidence boost in life.

David Pisarra, Esq. (12:08)
Absolutely.

Sol (12:09)
So you've seen a lot of cases over the years. What's a mistake that you see dads make in the courtroom that ends up hurting their case?

David Pisarra, Esq. (12:16)
Anger is the biggest mistake a man can make. It's the fastest way to lose your case because nine times out of 10, mom's coming into court in these heavily contested cases and saying that he's negligent, he doesn't know the kids, the kids are afraid of him, I'm afraid of him, he's terrorizing us because he's scary and yelling all the time. And oftentimes a man will get in those courtroom scenarios where he's being attacked. And if he's not prepared,

when a man is attacked, what we normally do, it's a normal behavior for us, we're going to express anger. And as soon as you've done that, you've lost. It's completely appropriate to be assertive in family court. It's, it's fine to say, "Your Honor, I'd like to speak to that because I don't think that she's giving you the complete story." That's one thing going in and saying, "Your Honor, she's lying."

You're, expressing anger and the judge is going to be like, "well, she just said you're angry and now you're actually showing me you're angry. believe her now. You just made her case." So if a man can go through Dad's Law School, go in with a bullet points of what he wants to talk about, be ready knowing that we're, we're going to do an accusation audit. Mom's going to say these things about you, dude. Like I can pretty much guarantee.

Here's the top five things that are going to be said about you. Know that they're coming and don't react when it happens. You're going be much more effective and much more capable to then stand up for yourself and more importantly, stand up for your kids, which is what they really need.

Sol (13:39)
Yeah, and I think it's a very common experience to walk into a family courtroom, regardless of your gender, and experience the other side lying, twisting the truth, telling half truths. It seems to be part and parcel with the family court system as it stands.

David Pisarra, Esq. (13:53)
Absolutely. of the things I say is the biggest joke in family court is under penalty of perjury.

What's perjury? So much of it is my opinion or my thoughts or my feelings. It's like, okay, well, he's being abusive. Well, that's, that's actually a feeling. That's an opinion.

Sol (14:08)
Yeah, and they're seeing a lot of this every day, judges, and there's not a lot that they can do about it. We often hear our listeners talk about how co-parents are, their ex brings in communication and they use that as a weapon, past messages. How can a parent, how can a father be maybe more aware of how they're communicating

David Pisarra, Esq. (14:11)
Yeah, absolutely.

Sol (14:28)
so that they can protect their parental rights.

David Pisarra, Esq. (14:30)
So there's two ways that we're seeing in the primary way that men are using AI these days. In our VIP program, like we talk frequently about how we're using ChatGPT or Claude or perplexity to rewrite emails. Guys will come in and they'll get this crazy email from the ex and the anger has flashed. Great.

And I say, awesome, I want that. Put it in writing. Now take that, drop it into ChatGPT or Claude or whatever you're using and say, rewrite this so that it is neutral and or gray rocked to the other side. And what it does is it rewrites the language in such a way that it takes out the anger, the emotion. uses neutral language to communicate the main points of what you want to get across. But without being

accusatory, angry, or abusive.

Sol (15:22)
Now, David, a lot of our listeners are already aware of this and I'll just mention to you. So I'm the founder of a co-parenting app that starts from the AI perspective. So we actually will take the messages that come in from your co-parent, automatically filter them so that you're not even getting that original triggering message. You're actually getting a filtered version that helps you stay grounded.

David Pisarra, Esq. (15:46)
Mmm.

Sol (15:46)
helps

respond sanely, and then later if you need to for court purposes, you can drag up that original and point out how your ex actually communicates. And it's just built, it's built in right in. So it's called BestInterest. I'd love for you to check it out. But I had to mention that since you mentioned AI.

David Pisarra, Esq. (15:54)
I love that solution.

100 %

If for no other reason than if we can just stop them from my perspective, if I can stop dads from having to feel the emotion of the anger, that's getting them 80 % of the way right off the bat.

Sol (16:13)
Exactly. Yeah, in my own experience, I would get so triggered and sometimes I would react defensively, put on a wall of text, and that would come back to bite me later. You know, I regretted it every single time. And so what we're doing is we're helping create a firewall between you and your ex so that you can be the one that is responding professionally, less engaged and able to look great in court.

David Pisarra, Esq. (16:25)
Absolutely.

That's fantastic

Sol (16:40)
As a co-parent myself, I know how difficult communication can be. That's why I created Best Interest, the co-parenting app that uses advanced AI technology to automatically filter out all negativity, promoting positive communication and helping you create a healthier environment for your family. Try it now and get 10 % off with code Beyond10. Link in the show notes.

Sol AI (17:03)
And now, back to the show.

David Pisarra, Esq. (17:05)
tell the story of I had a client, who had a volatile relationship. And he had a restraining order against him. They could only communicate about the kid peacefully. And she would trigger him.

She would say something snarky in the text message and he would respond with that volley of 15 text messages, right? Like, like you do. And, and what she did was this is the level of deceit. This is why an archive solution is important. She took all the text messages.

deleted her entries, then screenshot it and submitted it to the district attorney saying he's violating the restraining order. Look at this. It's hundreds of text messages of him berating me. like, "okay, cool. We can fight this. You have the other side of the conversation, don't you?" "No. I deleted all those text messages." And I'm like,

"Why, why, why did you do that? Did you at least screenshot it?" "No, I didn't think to do that." Okay. "I just got so angry. I didn't want to see him anymore. So I just got rid of him." I'm like, "we have a problem." And he ended up doing some jail time as a result of that. Yeah. But, that's why the archiving is so important.

Sol (18:05)
Wow, that's quite a consequence.

Yeah, I mean, even just upgrading your phone. Sometimes we lose the text messages, you know, it's important to have that archive. So switching gears for a moment. We talk a lot on this podcast about parallel parenting as a, sometime solution for especially high conflict situations. Curious  your take on parallel parenting. Does it feel like a reasonable step or is it frowned upon?

David Pisarra, Esq. (18:13)
Yeah.

Totally.

No, it's definitely a reasonable step. It's just very hard to do. Because frequently when you're, when that's needed, one or both parties has got a personality disorder. And when that's the situation, you can argue for it. You can do your best to try for it. You can do the trainings. You can get a therapist involved. You can have a parenting coordinator. And oftentimes, if there's a borderline personality, which is what I frequently come across,

they don't care. They're not on board with the concept of co-parenting or parallel parenting. They're on board with it's my way and no other way. And so yes, it's a great thing if people can parallel parent, not always successful.

Sol (19:07)
And it's definitely not the default in the current family court system.

David Pisarra, Esq. (19:10)
Definitely not. We're so behind the times in the way people are actually operating. We have these old models, these old biases that are still trying to shoehorn. And I say this frequently that 70 % of the cases, maybe 80 % of the cases, people find their own way. They're in court one, maybe two times to negotiate

a holiday schedule because they both want Thanksgiving and they need an outside voice to be like, you guys have to alternate, flip a coin, one of you is getting odd years, one of you is getting even years, and that's just way it's gonna be. They just need that. And once they have that, the conflict settles down, they just get in their routine, they accept the reality, and they move on. Then we've got the 30 % that are high conflict, and really of those?

I think really, really looking at 5 % of those are the really super high conflict cases.

Sol (19:59)
We had Amy Baker on to talk about parental alienation, you know Amy? Yeah. Yeah.

David Pisarra, Esq. (20:04)
Love Amy. Yeah,

I've known Amy for 15 years now, maybe more. Yeah.

Sol (20:08)
That's awesome. Yeah,

and I'm curious what your take is on, do you see this in your client roster of alienation tactics and what is your advice to dads that are experiencing that?

David Pisarra, Esq. (20:19)
So alienation tactics is a difficult thing. Like the whole languaging around alienation, have big issues with. And I tell dads like, don't ever, ever, ever use the phrase, parental alienation in a courtroom, because it's going to be used against you. It's not an actual definition by the APA.

The other side's going to paint you as crazy, subversive, trying to argue something that's what abusers do because you've got that whole faction

parental alienation doesn't exist. It's just a story made up by abusers to take good moms out of kids' lives away from bad dads. It's just, it's a nightmare. The reality is alienating behavior does occur. There's like three levels. There's your first level of we're going through a breakup.

Emotions are raw. People are angry. There's a lot of hurt. "There's your mom's being a jerk. Your dad's being a bum," whatever. That usually mellows down over like six months. People get into the rhythm, they get into the routines. The nastiness kind of subsides. It's alienated behavior, but not really. We're really venting emotions. We're really not trying to break the relationship between child and parent. It's just collateral damage of the breakup.

Then you get to more mid-level where it goes on longer. There's more issues at fault here. Maybe someone's got some substance abuse issues. There's ongoing deeper hurts. Maybe there's money issues that are playing into this where it's continuing for a year, 18 months, and it's a little bit worse. "Your parents not really supportive. They're not really loving us. They're not really doing this." And that will tend to subside over time. Then you get to the pathologic.

And this is where we're dealing with a borderline personality or a narcissistic personality disorder person where they really are trying to break the relationship between parent and child. And I see this a lot with the borderline personalities, who are so enmeshed with the child that they need to drive the father from the relationship

out of their own psychology. It's their own psychological need to have the child be their world. It's really nothing about dad. Dad could be an absolute stellar, perfect person saint. It's about mom's need to enmesh with the child because there's no there there in

so she's trying to fill that with the child.

That's where parental alienation really comes into play. And if you're going to be facing this, you really need to have a good team behind you that really understands how to battle that because borderlines know no boundaries, know no limits, will completely make up their own reality. And they will absolutely 100 % lie very convincingly to a judge. They're very good manipulators and actors.

And you have to be prepared to deal with that. And one of the other experts in this arena is Ashish Joshi and his book on parental alienation is awesome. If you're facing parental alienation, you need to get his book. You need to get the Moceniz-Lorandos book. You need to get the ABA book, Children Held Hostage. There's a bunch of information around parental alienation.

You really need to educate yourself and it's not something where a lawyer, they don't know what they're doing and they're in these high conflict cases, they need to either get up to speed really quickly or sub out of the case because you're not helping the parent who's facing this.

Sol (23:37)
And we'll put those resources in the show notes. Besides resources like that, how can a father or mother in this situation, how can they demonstrate to the court that they're the stable, consistent parent?

David Pisarra, Esq. (23:49)
So one of things I tell every dad is go get a desk calendar and it's go to Staples and buy that big, you know, two foot by three foot desk calendar. And whenever you have your child, just mark down, what did you do? And then take the receipts from Legoland or SeaWorld or the movies, whatever you did, and just staple it. Because you're going to need at some point to recreate your timelines. You're going to need to create the diary of what are you actually doing with the kid.

If you have all that information in one place, it's going to make it much easier when you have to actually start writing your declaration. That's one. Two is establishing strict boundaries and enforcing those boundaries and strict standards. When you're dealing with the other side, you have to have very, very, very specific orders. I described them as you need to have orders that are excruciatingly specific. It's going to be, "I'm picking up the child at 2:30

PM on the Northwest corner." You cannot be too specific because they will try and find any way possible to weasel out of the court order and say, well, you didn't comply with this. You didn't give me proper notice. I didn't actually know. You didn't give me all the information. Yes, you told me the, the plane number. You told me the flight number. told me when it takes off, when you're coming back, the hotel you're staying at, but you didn't give me the

the room number you're in. So I didn't know exactly where you were going to be. So therefore I'm not letting the kid go.

I mean, I've seen that. Like, that's not just fiction. The excuses for why somebody should be held from their child, they will go to any lengths conceivable.

And so you have to have the data to back that up when you're going into court. And that's where the dad's diary comes into play. You need to have those receipts to be able to support like, this is what I'm doing, Your Honor. This is where we go. This is how it's happening. So that you can actually make those arguments.

Sol (25:30)
For a dad right now who's listening and feeling really overwhelmed and just really in the trenches right now, what's a message that we can give them today that they can take away from this conversation?

David Pisarra, Esq. (25:41)
I have two. The first is I just interviewed for my own show, Ira Peskowitz. And Ira is a father who was alienated from his daughter for basically her entire life. She's known as Bad Baby. She was on the Dr. Phil show. She's the Catch Me Outside girl. And they have subsequently reunited and reestablished their relationship after many, many years.

And so Ira's big message is stay the course, don't do anything stupid. Don't take yourself out of the game because when the kids grow up and they get away from the abuser, they will start to see reality. And if you're there, you can help reestablish that relationship. That's that that's one. And the other is for the dads who need support, I would encourage them to check out Dad's Law School because we have support.

We have men coming together in community to help you through this. More than you know, you need to have the opportunity to share what's going on and have the advice and comfort from another man to tell you, you're not alone. You can get through this. Here's how I did it. You will survive this. And we've got guys who have good results as their experience.

Sol (26:46)
It sounds like such a great resource. And ⁓ before we get to our Action Round, for those that want to connect with you, David, and find out more about your work or get your the best way for them to connect with you?

David Pisarra, Esq. (26:58)
If they go to DadsLawSchool.com, they can join our VIP program. There'll be a pop-up to buy my book, Dad's Child Custody Action Plan. And those two resources are pretty much what most dads need right off the bat to get started if they're going into family court. They need to have the book to get a quick, it's an easy read. It's designed understanding what dads need to know.

I've got sample documents included so that they can actually see what I'm talking about when I say, here's a declaration. Here's how you tell the judge. Here's how you show to the judge. You've got sample scripts in there for how to admit evidence. You've got a kid inventory. It's 123 questions of what do you know about your kid? What do you need here? You're not going to need to know all 123 questions. If you pick 30 of them and I like, these are the answers and you express to the judge that you've got these 30 facts about your kid.

You're going to be showing to the judge, I'm active, I'm engaged, I know what my kid's all about. the resource that they need to

Sol (27:55)
That's great. Now to get to our Action Round here, what we do is I'm gonna list off a few sentences and you're going to fill in the blank with the first thing that comes to your mind. Are you ready? The one piece of advice I wish every father knew before walking into a courthouse is...

David Pisarra, Esq. (28:06)
Okay.

Do not expect it to be fair. It's not gonna be fair. It's not a court of justice, it's a court of law. You need to be able to get in there and argue effectively to advocate for yourself and for your kids.

Sol (28:24)
That's very sobering. Thank you. The one thing that instantly tells a judge a parent is being unreasonable is...

David Pisarra, Esq. (28:31)
When they make a request that they haven't fully thought through and can't support, live 50 miles apart, but I want to have the kid on an every other day custody schedule." It's just not realistic.

Sol (28:43)
Right.

Yeah, they're just gonna ask how. Yeah. A child's biggest secret fear in a co-parenting situation is...

David Pisarra, Esq. (28:51)
that they're going to be abandoned by their abuser.

one of the things that we know is that they've had the other parent oftentimes taken from them through domestic violence restraining order frequently. That's the father. So now if they've had one parent disappeared out of their life, their fear is going to be that the other parent could go to.

That's one of the reasons why this is so damaging to children is because we're creating a fear that they don't need to have.

Sol (29:14)
The fastest way to lose credibility with a judge is to...

David Pisarra, Esq. (29:18)
The obvious one is to lie, but that's a hard one because in family court, seems like everybody lies about something because so much of it's perception. Abuse is perceived in the eye of the victim, so it's hard. I think for men, it's anger, and I think for women, it's irrationality are two things that are both going to hurt you in the judge's eyes.

Sol (29:38)
The most valuable asset a parent can bring to the legal battle is not their lawyer, but their...

David Pisarra, Esq. (29:44)
authenticity. That's one of the reasons why I say dads need to have a declaration that expresses to the judge and demonstrates and proves why they're a great dad. When you can authentically show to a judge that you're an active engaged father, the judge is going to have a much harder time ruling against you.

Sol (30:02)
Yeah, because they really want both parents to be actively involved.

David Pisarra, Esq. (30:06)
They do.

Sol (30:06)
The difference between fighting your ex and fighting for your child is...

David Pisarra, Esq. (30:10)
Dealing with the bias of the courts. And this is where you have to remember that you're fighting not just your ex, but you're also fighting the system. That's where the declaration is important. That's where coming in with your supporting evidence is important because the system will punish you if you don't have that stuff in front of them.

Sol (30:27)
One small action that makes a big difference in court is...

David Pisarra, Esq. (30:31)
Probably pausing when you're speaking. Oftentimes people are so nervous when they're speaking to the judge that they go rapid fire and they don't give themselves an opportunity to breathe. And they don't give the judge an opportunity to understand what somebody's actually said. If I hit you with 23 facts in the next 40 seconds, you're going to remember two.

If, if I'm lucky, but if I say one and I take a beat and I say a second and I take a beat, I say a third, I take a beat. It's much more likely that you'll be able to compile them and remember a good chunk of them. But it's also you're letting the judge see who you are as a person by being calmer.

And so I would say breathing and letting things slow down is the best advice I could give to somebody.

Sol (31:23)
Thank you David for all of your insights today. It's been such a pleasure having you on. Before we let you go, do you have any parting words for our listeners?

David Pisarra, Esq. (31:31)
Yes. You need to show up in court as your best self, not because you're going to get more time to lower your child support, but you're going to get more time because your kids deserve it. And that's what this should all be about. It should be about what do the kids deserve.

Sol (31:44)
I love that. Thanks so much for your time today.

David Pisarra, Esq. (31:46)
Thank you, it's been a pleasure.

Sol (31:49)
Thanks for joining us on the Coparenting Beyond Conflict podcast. To support our show, subscribe or leave a rating. Links for all books and resources mentioned on appear in our show notes or on CoparentingBeyondConflict.com. See you next time.

Sol (32:07)
The commentary and opinions available on this podcast are for informational and entertainment purposes only, and not for the purpose of providing legal or psychological advice. You should contact a licensed attorney, coach, or therapist in your state to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem.