¶ Introduction to The Secure Dad Podcast
You're listening to The Secure Dad Podcast. Discover ways to protect yourself and your family at home in public and online. Welcome, friend. I'm Andy Murphy, the creator of The Secure Dad. This podcast serves to help people become proactive in their safety. The information I share on this podcast is for general information purposes only. My goal is to empower you to make safer decisions for yourself and your family. Because our safety is our own responsibility.
Today my guest and I discuss how we can protect our parental rights in court. While we hope we never have to be in family court, this information can be useful to us and to people that we know. All of that and more ahead on The Secure Dad Podcast.
¶ Data Breaches and Digital Privacy
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¶ David Pisarra: Protecting Parental Rights
So, David, thank you so much for being on the show with me today. Introduce yourself to everybody.
Thanks, Andy. It's great to be here. My, my name is David Pisarra. I founded a company called Dad's Law School. It's dadslawschool. com. And the purpose is to help dads get more parenting time with their kids. Frequently, dads go into family court, and they have no idea what they're doing. They walk in, they say, I'm a great dad, and think they're going to get 50 percent custody. And that's just not the way this game is played.
You know, and a lot of dads think they're playing football, and the reality is they're playing 3D chess. They really need a lot of information. They need to change the way they think about the mother of their children. They need to think about the way the court approaches things. They need to think about what they're bringing to the relationship. And so Dad's Law School was designed to help dads understand the way the game is played and give them the tools they need so they can succeed.
And get the 50 percent that they want and that their kids deserve.
Right. And that's, you know, typically something that, you know, we don't ever think about until we actually need it. So I'm glad that we're having this conversation today to either help people who may be looking at this or know somebody who may be looking at this, um, to just try to help educate people.
¶ Understanding Family Law and Custody
So, uh, what got you started in family law?
That's a good question. So 25 years ago, my partner and I opened up our law firm and I said, what do you want to practice? He said, family law. And I was like, ew, gross. I wanted to be a captain of industry. I wanted to go be the Gordon Gekko of Los Angeles, right? Like that was my goal. And I would go to the Rotary Club and the Chamber of Commerce and the Elks meetings. And I talked about our law firm and what I could do for entrepreneurs. And nobody, I mean, nobody wanted to talk to me.
And then at the end, I do my little wrap up, and again, my partner does family law, and they would rush me. It would be, can he lower my child support? Can he lower my alimony? I gotta get out of this divorce. Blah, blah, blah. Like, all this stuff. And before I knew it, his calendar was full, and it was spilling into my calendar, because I had to start covering hearings. And before I knew it, I'm a divorce lawyer!
Like, all of a sudden, like, my calendar's completely full, and I'm going into court representing men, women, doing all this stuff. About four years into it, I got kind of burned out and made a list of clients I liked and clients that were driving me crazy. And oddly, it was boys on the left and girls on the right. Like, that's, that's interesting what's going on there. And when women come in to see a divorce lawyer, they usually see two or three of them before they actually pull the trigger.
And they come in wanting all the kids. all the money, all the retirement, all the pension. They want you to go to him and make him pay for it all. And they want him destroyed. Man walks into my office and is like, dude, it's over. This relationship is done. I want out. What's it going to cost me? How long is it going to take? They got two questions. And I'm like, it's going to take about six to 12 months and give me a 5, 000 retainer. And let's get started.
They write me a check and they're like, call me when you need me with women. It's, they want to be my best friend. They want to be my therapist. They want me to be their therapist. They want me to be their father confessor. They want to go over everything five times. And it's just way too much work and stress. So that's how I ended up with men's family law, our old website, which is our primary business, Divorce is for men.
And then for about 15 years, I've been representing dads going into court, watching other dads go into court, and they just get destroyed, you know, dads who are representing themselves walk in, and they just don't know what they're doing. And the women come in because they've met with two or three or four lawyers.
And even if they don't have a lawyer, They've gathered enough other information that they're ready for battle and they come in and they're just slapping all the stuff down in front of the judge. I know this. I know this. I know this about my kids. He's negligent. He doesn't do this. He's never around. And the judge is kind of left with this question of, I've got mom saying all of this information and dad's giving me nothing. So who do I believe? Right.
We have to believe mom because it's the only information we have. And so after doing this for all these years, I decided it's time to do something more. I have to help men at scale because you know, the vast bulk of people can't afford lawyers.
Right.
Just too expensive. And, and I get it. I understand it, but how do I help them? And that's why I came up with dad's law school and my child custody action teach dads what they need to know so that they can represent themselves.
So for people who are listening to this who may unfortunately be looking at the possibility of divorce What is it that parents need to do to get ready for this? What kind of things need to happen at this point before, you know, paperwork gets filed?
So the primary thing that dads need to know is they need to start creating a calendar What's their actual parenting time been like? What do they know about their kids? How involved are they? How engaged are they? And they need to have something that sort of supports them. That gives the court proof. And that can be as simple as, you know, receipts. We went to the movies. We went to the water park. Pictures of you at the ballet rehearsals. Pictures of you at soccer practice.
Something that supports when you tell a judge, listen, I've been really engaged with my kids. Here's what I'm doing. Here's where I'm going. This is the way in which we're interacting. And one of the ways we do that is we have what's called dad's diary. And I tell guys, just go to the office supply store, buy one of those big desk calendars. And start marking on the day. It's just a big red X. This is the day I saw my kid, and then whatever receipts you have, just staple it to it.
So you've got all that information in one place, so that whether you need to compile that, turn that into a declaration to give to the judge. or give it to your lawyer, who's going to then compile it and give it to the judge. At least you've got the information together in one place. And that's the biggest thing dads need is just a way to like start gathering their information so they can make the arguments to the judge that they aren't actually an active engaged father.
You've shared with us about, you know, how, you know, the different sides prepare for this sort of thing, but from the other side of the bench, from the judge's point of view, are mothers and fathers rights viewed equally?
Yes, they are. I mean, most courts actually are most courts are gender neutral, at least in the law. Now, in practice, it's a different situation because we've got two things going on there. One, we've got a judge's internal bias, hard to get around. Everybody's got them. We do training. We teach judges. You know, you're not supposed to have these biases. You're supposed to like, look at people as equals. And then you've got who's coming in with more information.
And this is, we're back to mom's coming in with a stack of reasons why she's a great mom. Here's a stack of reasons why dad's a bad dad. And dad's coming in with, well, I'm a great dad. And it's like, no, dude, that's not going to cut it. Like, you've got to do more. And that's the biggest thing is just getting prepared. Because it's not that the courts are necessarily biased against dads. It's that the way the game is played, they're not playing it correctly.
You know, if you play baseball and you try and play by the rules of football, you're not going to get very far. It's just not going to be a good game. So you've got to understand the game you're playing and the rules. And once you do that, then you've got a much better shot at getting what it is you're asking.
Right. So it sounds like I've, I've often heard this, there is, you know, from police officers who will say there is, you know, the victim side, there's the attacker side, and then the truth is kind of somewhere in between, and then you have to go to court and then by the time you get there, you know, everybody's so far removed from what's happened. And then it's just kind of its own thing at this point. So how can you coach people to understand that? Okay. This is a moment in your life.
This is what is happening. But when you get into court. It's a, it's a different game, as you're saying.
The hardest part is getting people to understand that we each have our own perspectives, and you've got to explain to the judge why your perspective is more right and more accurate. And this is where things like having video, having text messages, having emails, can really support a dad who's trying to make an argument to a judge. Because oftentimes they don't use that stuff properly.
Oftentimes they'll come in, and I've literally, I've watched guys come in, I've watched him come in and they've got like a stack and they're like, I've got all these emails and text messages and this is why, you know, she's gatekeeping and that's great, but it's not admitted evidence. And you have to use it properly. You have to take each one individually and say, your honor, I want to mark and identify petitioners.
One, it's a text message between me and mom talking about pickups at the police station. And then you get that introduced, and then you can actually use that as evidence. And more importantly, the judge can use that as evidence and be like, okay, now I see what's really going on here. Because this text message shows mom really is denying dad access and mom, that's not fair. We're not going to allow you to do that. Right. So it's a, it's a skill that they need to learn.
And we teach that at dad's law school.
Yeah. So it sounds like there is. The understanding of how you need to present yourself, and you can't just, it's not like a conversation you and I are having, there's an actual full legal procedure, you have to just enter into evidence what's going on, almost as if it's a criminal trial, you know, all of these things have to be stated, they have to be done, and we can't, you know, a parent can't just walk in there and just, Hope for the best.
100%. You have to be able to go in and match up your set of facts with evidence to the law. And so that a judge can then say, well, according to these facts and this law, this is the ruling because that's the goal.
Very good. So for parents who are going through a custody dispute, what are some of the things that they need to avoid?
Bad expectations. A lot of times they come in and they have an expectation that's just completely unrealistic. You know, I, I live in Santa Monica. It's right on the coast in Los Angeles. And guys come to me and they're like, I want 50 percent custody of my kids. Okay. How old is your kid? Eight years old. Great. No reason that an eight year old can't have overnights with dad. We're not talking breastfeeding. We're not talking diapers, probably well bonded, certainly mature enough to speak up.
There should be no problems. Where does mom live? Riverside. Riverside's 75 miles east of here and you want 50 percent custody. So you're thinking the kid's going to live with you for a week and then mom for a week. Well, how's school going to happen? You're going to commute every day, 75 miles and drop that kid off at school at 7am. That means you're getting up at five in the morning to drive an hour to get there.
Judges going to be like, no, I'm not having a child get up at five in the morning, spend an hour in the car to get to school. That's just not going to happen. And that's where dad has an unrealistic expectation. And I have to tell him, listen, if you want 50 percent custody, here's what you need to do. You need to go move back to Riverside. You need to live closer to where mom is because you need to live close to where the school is. So the child has a short commute.
Then when you say, well, I have a flexible work from home job. There's no reason why I can't have mornings, afternoons, time with my child. I can pick them up, drop them off, get them to bed, get them to school, make them lunch. Why can't I have 50 percent custody, your honor? Judge is going to have a real hard time saying, no, mom's a better parent in that situation. But if you have this unrealistic expectation that a 75 mile commute is okay.
You're not going to win and then you're going to come out and be angry either at me or the judge or the system's not fair or men can't win and it's like no men can you're just got to come in with the right expectations.
Okay. So what I hear a lot in your responses is, and maybe this is just what I'm taking away, does the mom get first right to the child and then dad has to fight to get that? Or I'm sure every case is different. Kind of help me out there. Um, with who has the right expectation to, you know, keep their child in their, their custody.
So we've got two different situations here. One, we've got married couples who have a child and they, by the nature of the fact that they're married, have equal joint legal custody of that child, both physical custody and legal custody. That child can be picked up by dad, go spend time with dad, not a problem. When we have couples who are not married. Just boyfriend, girlfriend, got together, had a kid. Maybe they were living together, maybe they weren't. The problem is this.
The court presumes that mom has sole legal custody, sole physical custody, right off the bat. Because there's no question of parentage. There's no question the child came from mom.
Got it.
There is a question as to dad. And that's why dads have to file a paternity action and get a court judgment that says you're the father and here's your custody claim.
Gotcha. All right. So.
¶ Domestic Violence and Legal Protections
In a situation where there may be, uh, abuse going on from one parent to another, what can the parent who is, uh, you know, the victim here, the child is the victim, you know, what are some things that they need to do to be able to get one out of the home and that parent be able to legally hold on to the custody of the child so that they don't go back into an abusive home?
So this is where we filed what's called the domestic violence restraining order. And this is a tool that, it's kind of like a giant nuclear bomb. It's super, super powerful. And properly drafted, a domestic violence restraining order application essentially cuts the other party off at the knees, chops their arms off, and says, okay, now let's box. It's a super powerful thing.
But if you've got a situation where you are being abused, where your child is being abused, you need to get a domestic violence restraining order. And that'll give you the legal right to take that child, put them in a protected place. You can get out of that place, or you can have an order for the abusive parent to be removed from the home. This frequently is done by moms against dads.
And this is where, again, where bias really comes into play here, because moms obviously are far more likely to go in and say, I'm scared of him, he's abusive, he's terrorizing me, and men frequently will hit that chivalry button. They're not going to want to fight hard. They're willing to be like, okay, I give. And then the mom ends up in custody. It's rare for a man to walk into court and ask for domestic violence restraining order.
I have had men who literally have been beaten, abused, bloodied, bruised, blood dripping down their face. And I cannot get them to file a restraining order because they don't want to go into court and say I was abused at a 200 pound man by that 120 pound woman abused me because now we're impacting my sense of self, my sense of masculinity. I'm worried my friends are going to say about me because they're going to be like, Oh, what kind of a wimp is that? Which is BS by the way.
You know, but this is where we get trapped in this. This is a man is always the abuser because even if he's. abused by her and then defends himself, her first reaction is going to be, what kind of man are you to defend yourself against a woman? If you do defend yourself, other men are going to be like, what kind of man hits a woman? Because men are never supposed to hit women. I get that.
And I agree that you should never be the first aggressor, but that doesn't mean you don't have a right to defend yourself. If you're being abused, you absolutely have a right to defend yourself and you should.
Right. Yeah. Regardless of your, your gender or whatever in your relationship, if you're being abused, you absolutely have the right to defend yourself. And that
said, it needs to be a proportional response.
Right. You can't just go off the deep end or something like that. That's, uh, a lot of people, and that is honestly a podcast for another day, about, you know, the level of, you know, response you can have in a self defense situation, right? But, like, I think that's one of these big myths. of domestic violence is that women are always, you know, the victims and men are the aggressors.
And I have, I have met people and talked to people who, men who have been in that situation and did not know what to do. So I'm glad that you were able to talk about it here and hopefully, you know, help somebody listening, you know, who might be in a situation like this realize that there is help and they can do things.
And just briefly, the other thing that people need to realize is that the definition of domestic abuse has been expanded dramatically over the last 30 years. 30 years ago, OJ Simpson allegedly killed Nicole Brown Simpson. That was a sea change in our society and how we view domestic violence and domestic abuse. And it really was like, you really did have to involve physicality for court to even look at the situation. Today, we're at the opposite extreme of that.
Where it's emotional abuse, verbal abuse, it's financial abuse. It's this thing called coercive control, where if I'm controlling you through coercion, whether it's alienating you from your friends and family, controlling the pocketbook, only giving you certain privileges in the house if you do certain things, this is a coercive control situation. And men need to be understanding that The situation is very different, and frequently, they are the victims of abuse and they're not even aware of it.
Yeah, that can be a thing too, and it's a very good point that you brought up. And I also liked how you talked about, you know, you know, I remember OJ Simpson, I remember the trial, I remember all of that. And so, You, you think about domestic violence, you usually think about physical violence, but there's also like emotional and verbal abuse as well. If somebody is in one of those situations, how can they best document this? Because it's not like you can show scars.
It's not like you can show bruises. What are some ways that people in those situations can fight for their rights as a parent and, and for their child?
So many states have a law that allows you to record whether or not the other party knows about it specifically for the purpose of documenting domestic abuse. Like, in the state of California, we're a two party state. I can't record you without you knowing I'm recording you, unless it is specifically for the purpose to prove that there's abuse going on. So some states have that. Some states are just individual one party states. That's one element. It's just recordings.
The other is starting to document what's going on with you physically. Are you losing sleep? Are you losing appetite? Are you seeing a therapist and getting a diagnosis? Are you creating emails and text messages that sort of create the paper trail of what's going on? Do you have emails and text messages from the other side with that? I'm, so sorry. It'll never happen again stuff because that's big too that goes to prove.
Okay, they're apologizing for their behavior What's the behavior they're apologizing for?
Okay. Yeah, and that's a really good point So kind of go down this rabbit hole a little bit further. How does a parent defend themselves against false? uh, accusations, because I'm sure that happens in court, you know, frequently somebody either bends the truth or just outright lies. How do you defend against that sort of situation?
It's very, very difficult. You know, a good lie is hard to defend against. Um, and, but again, this is where the, the, what's going on around the picture can, can sort of show what's going on. So if mom's coming in and saying like, I'm terrified of him, he's terrorizing me, he's abusing the children. But she left the kids with him for a weekend to go to Vegas with the girls. She left the kids with him for a week when she went to Hawaii with her mom.
How, how scary is he really, you know, this is where it's like, okay, you say you're scared of him. You say he is terrorizing the kids, but you trust him enough to leave the kids with him. Sure. Kind of shows like maybe you're not as scared as you say you are. So we start painting the picture from the, the frame in like what's really going on. And oftentimes we use the argument that, you know, your honor.
And yes, yelling is bad, and there's a difference between a normative argument between humans and habitual everyday yelling at somebody. So it's one thing if you and I get into an argument and you know, one of us raises our voice and it happens. Anger is not an uncommon emotion for humans. The question is, is that anger a pervasive, chronic situation, or is it a one time thing? I hit my thumb with a hammer and I scream and I'm yelling and I'm, ah. That's one thing.
If I'm doing something like that every single day to terrorize you, that's another. And so you have to start painting the whole picture, and that's where it comes in to take a look at what's going on around the situation.
So like, what are some of the things that, you know, you see time and time again, when somebody comes into your practice, that it was just like, I wish more parents knew this. This is the one thing about this particular situation and fighting for your parental rights. I wish people knew more about this. What would you say the answer to that is?
Um, boy, that's a hard one because there's so many things to talk about when we're dealing with, you know, Parenting skills. I think that people really need to have more parenting skills. I wish more people would take parenting classes. Yeah. I tell all of my clients, I know you're a great dad. Do me a favor. Go take a parenting class. They're online. It's six hours, 12 hours, 18 hours, whatever it's going to be.
Get the certificate because it's one of those things that now we can use that and show to the judge. Listen, dad's being proactive. Dad's got a parenting class. Dad's coming up with new ways to discipline the kids. Dad's not using the methods that were used against him by his parents who are completely dysfunctional. When I grew up, I literally had my mother literally put soap in my mouth. I swore. Today? That's a DCFS report and I'm living in foster care. Yeah, you don't do that anymore.
But, but you need to have the ability to go into a court and say, your honor, I've learned proper discipline tool. And so it's one of those things where if you have that ability, because you've got the certificate, you've done the course. Now you're going to be able to talk to the judge about what's really going on,
¶ Maintaining Healthy Relationships
So david, you know as we wrap up here for people who are in, you know, good marriages good relationships, you know What are some of the things that they need to continue to do to make sure that they don't end up in court?
The biggest one is couples need to remember that they need to be a couple first It's real easy to get caught up in the kids need this. And this one's got to get to soccer practice. Now it's got volleyball and this one's got a school play and this, and this, and this, and you're running all over the place. And the relationship between parents starts to shred. becomes thinner and thinner because you don't have any time to reconnect. You're always doing something.
You're in service to the kids all the time. And I realize that that's a primary purpose of the family, but the relationship between husband and wife or man and woman, man and man, woman and woman, whoever the parents are, Has to be nurtured. It has to have some time to breathe. And it's one thing when you've got a newborn and you're in the first six weeks, I get it. Like that's chaos, right? It is.
It's another, when we're approaching a year, two years, and you guys haven't had grandma take care of the kids for a weekend, go away, reconnect, relax. Find out, remember why you guys liked each other. Because if you're just constantly doing, you got to think about the garbage, I got to get Bobby to soccer practice, he's got to get the volleyball practice, you didn't go to the store and buy what we needed, and then we're out of this, it's a constant stress factor.
And if you don't have that opportunity to reconnect, eventually the relationship will fall apart. And I see that happen a lot. I see that often moms end up so focused on the kids, They forget that they have a partner, and then, well, the partner's not doing enough, or he's doing it wrong, or it's something, and it's like, you got to remember what was going on here. You know, you're upset that he loaded the dishwasher incorrectly, the fact that he loaded the dishwasher.
Let's just focus on the important stuff here. Like, it doesn't have to be correct. The other big thing is this. Parents who are separated have to remember that the other parent is going to parent in their own style. And that's okay. As long as they're not being abusive to the child and negligent to the child, they have different styles. That's okay. You have to give them grace. And that cuts both ways. Moms and dads.
Right. David, that is actually some of the best relationship advice I've ever had on this podcast. So thank you very much for, for bringing that up and, and helping us to kind of end on a positive note here. You know, if people want to know more about you and dad's law school, where do they go to find you?
The best place is dads law school.com. I've got a whole connection there for people to connect with me. And if you wanna follow me on TikTok, it's at Dads Law School and I've got all kinds of tiktoks talking about what's going on with parenting and the law.
Very good. David, thank you for your time today. I really do appreciate it. Thank you for what you're doing. I know it's, it's, uh, a high stress job that you do, but it sounds like you're doing a lot of people a lot of good. And I appreciate you.
Thanks, man. It's great being here.
¶ Conclusion
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I'm Andy Murphy reminding you that our safety is our own responsibility.