Mediate This!
Mediate This!
Interview with David Pisarra Founder of Union Dads and Dad's Law School
David Pisarra is the founder of Union of Dads, with over 25 years in Family Law, focusing on helping fathers in custody and divorce cases. He's developed a supportive community with a social media reach of 125,000 dads aged 24-50, aiming to empower them in being active participants in their children's lives.
At Dad's Law School, he lends practical skills for dads to succeed in Family Court, offering comprehensive online guidance and in-person trainings like his Dad's Badass Bootcamp.
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You're Not the Only One - The Agony of Divorce: The Joy of Peaceful Resolution
Matthew Brickman
President iMediate Inc.
Mediator 20836CFA
iMediateInc.com
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ABOUT MATTHEW BRICKMAN:
Matthew Brickman is a Supreme Court of Florida certified county civil family mediator who has worked in the 15th and 19th Judicial Circuit Courts since 2009 and 2006 respectively. He is also an appellate certified mediator who mediates a variety of small claims, civil, and family cases. Mr. Brickman recently graduated both the Harvard Business School Negotiation Mastery Program and the Negotiation Master Class at Harvard Law School.
SCHEDULE YOUR MEDIATION: https://ichatmediation.com/calendar/
OFFICIAL BLOG: https://ichatmediation.com/podcast
OFFICIAL YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/ichatmediation
OFFICIAL LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ichat-mediation/
ABOUT MATTHEW BRICKMAN:
Matthew Brickman is a Supreme Court of Florida certified county civil family mediator who has worked in the 15th and 19th Judicial Circuit Courts since 2009 and 2006 respectively. He is also an appellate certified mediator who mediates a variety of small claims, civil, and family cases. Mr. Brickman recently graduated both the Harvard Business School Negotiation Mastery Program and the Negotiation Master Class at Harvard Law School.
Hi, my name is Sydney
Matthew Brickman:Mitchell. Hi, I'm Matthew Brickman, Florida Supreme Court mediator. Welcome to the Mediate This podcast, where we discuss everything mediation and conflict resolution. Today, I had the pleasure of interviewing David Passara. He's an attorney in California. He's got over 25 years experience in family law, and he focuses on helping fathers in custody and divorce cases. And he's developed a support community with a social media reach of over 125,000 dads. And his goal is to empower them in being active participants in their kids' lives. And he's created something called Dads Badass Boot Camp. So I'm really excited to share with you everything that I've learned from David. So let's take a listen. Good morning, Dave. How are you? Well, let me just figure out where the heck we are. There we are. Okay. There we are. So I'm really excited to talk with you. You're in California, right? Yes, sir. Where in California are you? I'm in Los Angeles, Santa Monica. Los Angeles, okay. All right, and I'm on the other side of the U.S. in Florida. Yep. And I'm really excited to talk to you today because you've got your hands in some really interesting things. But you're also practicing, you've been practicing law in California for like, what, 25 years, I think I read? 25, somewhere else, 27 now. Oh, 27. So all in California? Yeah, I've been here the whole time. Okay. So, because I know that California and Florida have really different laws when it comes to parenting, when it comes to equitable distribution. And so, I'm really interested about your work that you're doing in California. So, yeah, tell me a little bit about you, what you're involved with, with all the dad programs, the boot camp, the badass boot camp you have. Yeah. Okay. So let me give you the short version. I graduated law school. My partner and I go to open up our firm. I'm like, what do you want to practice? He says, I want to do family law. My immediate reaction was like, ew, gross. But my job was to go do the Rotary Club and the Chamber of Commerce and the Elks Club and like generate business. So I would go do my little dog and pony show because I wanted to do business law. I wanted to go be like Gordon Gekko. Let's go champion of industry. And nobody wanted to talk to me. Like I was just, you know, hits on a bull. But then I would talk about how my partner does family law. And as soon as I said family law, they would bum rush me. It would be, I need to get out of my divorce, my marriage. I need to lower my child support. I need to end this alimony. I need, I need, I need. And all of a sudden his calendar gets so full, it spills into my calendar. And so when my calendar starts getting full, I'm like, all right, well, I'm doing this. And 25 years go by and all of a sudden I'm like, wait a second, I'm a divorce lawyer. How'd that happen? Because you were there trying to build a business, but you built the family business. Exactly. There's a lot more anger and emotion and heat. It's an easier message to get across. You know, someone's got a real pain point in their divorce or the custody battle. Versus, you know, we really need to structure your business differently so we minimize the taxes. And then when you die, like the assets, nobody cares about that. Like that's way down the road.
David Pisarra:Yeah.
Matthew Brickman:Yeah. Well, and one of the things I've always, I mean, I've learned is, you know, and I'm sure you know, after 27 years, I've been doing this for 18 years, and it is the most difficult part of law because it involves humanity, human nature, emotions. It can be the most fulfilling, though, part of, I think, the law. But at the same time, it is never-ending because we will never stop having relationships, stop having sex, procreating, breaking up, having issues. And so it's just a revolving door of, all right, I'm here to help. I'm here to help. I'm here to help. And you can even have repeat business. You could do, I mean, I've done that where I've done somebody's divorce and they're like, Matthew, I need you again. I got my girlfriend knocked up and now I need a paternity action. You're like, you didn't learn. We did one couple's divorce three times. One couple. Married and divorced, married and divorced, married and divorced. And then I did his estate planning and he came to me and I said, okay, fine. Who are we leaving everything to? Guess who he leaves everything to? Her. I'm like, why did you divorce her? He's like, we just can't live together. I'm like, all right, whatever. I had that right at once. When new lawyers start practicing family law, they think, oh, it's easy. It's just divorces. Oh, it's just, no. No. Family law is, I think, the most complex area of law because we cross constitutional issues, bankruptcy issues, criminal issues, real property issues, business issues, tax issues. Then we get into psychology and family custody. Then we get into division of assets, tracing, financials, 100%. Here, without a doubt, probably some of the most talented lawyers in reality, even though we get the worst reputation, Because our clients, when they're coming to us, have such a wide diversity of problems. And so when we're dealing with them, oftentimes they're not going to be happy with the result. We're the jerks. We're the ones that get paid too much money. We don't know what we're doing. I overpaid. It's not my fault. We've got big issues. Yeah. Yeah. So so how did you tell me about then how you really started focusing or at what point did you go? Wait a second. I need to really help dads and fathers in this whole thing. Like at what point in was it recent? Was it about five years in where we're practicing law? We're taking everything, men, women, domestic violence, custody, everything but adoption. Oh, everything but adoption. Everything but adoption, which is probably the happiest part of family life. Right? Everybody loves it when somebody gets adopted. Nobody's a bad guy. So we're doing this stuff. We're about five years in, and I am up to here with stress and anxiety, and it's driving me crazy. And this one client, Betsy, comes in, and she's just made a mess of her life, and you have to fix it. And I'm like, You need to leave. Like, I'm done. I cannot fix your life. Right. And I was so ready to just, like, chuck it all. But my partner had a wife and a kid and a mortgage and two dogs and probably a couple lizards and, you know, life. I had my own stuff going on with my mortgage and my kids. I mean, my dog was my kid. And life doesn't– you don't get to just be like, I'm chucking it all. Like, that takes a long time.
David Pisarra:Sure.
Matthew Brickman:So I had to reconfigure what we were doing. And I made a list of clients I liked and clients that were annoying me.
David Pisarra:Okay.
Matthew Brickman:And it was literally like boys on the right, girls on the left. Girls on the left. Wow. That's really interesting what's going on there. Now, I'm a gay man. I'm like, okay, maybe there's some bias going on. But really, the bias should probably be more with the women. Sure. Gay equals women, right? So when I'm looking at that, I'm going, this does not make sense to me. But it's not.
David Pisarra:Right.
Matthew Brickman:And I started looking at it like, okay, when she comes in, I want to head on a pike. I want all the money. I want the kids. I want all the property. Turn him into the IRS for tax fraud. Destroy him. Put him in jail. And he has to support me. And he has to support the kids. And I want lifetime support. And, and, and, you need to be my therapist, best friend, stylist, partner. I'm like, oh, and I don't have any money. You got to go get it from him. I don't have any money. Yeah, I've heard that. So he comes in. Dude, it's over. We haven't had relations in like seven years. I want out. What's it going to cost me? How long is it going to take? Here's your retainer. Call me when you need me. Completely different experiences. Sure, sure. Then we just reconfigured and focused more on men's family law, which was our main website, still is today. And we primarily dealt with men, divorces, child custody, alimony, termination. About five years ago, I'm building up this new business and COVID comes along. It throws everybody's world into just chaos, right? I'm like, yeah, I got to reconfigure stuff. What am I going to do? But I've got this new online business model that I'm trying to do, and it's not going to work well what I had planned, but I've got all this new knowledge. And I'm looking around going, okay, how do I, A, support myself, B, help others. And C, use all this knowledge. That's when I created Union of Dads. And it was dads who all this time I keep seeing dads are getting destroyed. They go into family court. They're like, I'm a great dad. And they lose. Why? They don't have a lawyer to advocate for them. They don't know what to say to the judge. They don't know how to argument, argue to the judge. They don't know how to draft their paperwork. They don't know how to put together all the things they know in a way the judge can hear them. I started getting into dads and I came out with Dad's Law School, my online program that teaches dads how to represent yourself in family court, how to take the things you know about your kids and put them in a declaration so a judge can look at it and be like, he's a great dad. Because when dad walks into court and says, I'm a great dad, he ain't saying anything. Sure. There's not a man who's ever walked into court and said, I'm a piss poor dad. Everybody says I'm a great dad. You're not saying anything. You're saying water is wet. You're not even telling the judge. I'm a great dad, and here's 43 reasons why. This is what I know about my kids. This is how I discipline my kids. This is how I interact with my kids. Because mom's coming in and saying he's negligent. He doesn't know anything about the kids. He's always working. He doesn't know anything about their school, their doctors, their dentists, their medical conditions, their allergies. He doesn't even know their shoe size. They always say he doesn't know their shoe size. I don't know why. So what I did, I created this program, which is how to take all the stuff that they know about their kids and put it into a declaration so that a judge can actually look at it and be like, oh, you know what? This guy actually is a good guy. Mom's saying all that, but here's the proof. Here's the evidence that shows dad's actually an engaged father who knows what's going on with his kids. That's what dad law school has grown out of from those early days of, Fix My Life has kind of evolved into helping dads be an active and engaged part of their kid's life. So is this, so the dad's law school, is that like... Let's say, for example, I was interested in that. How does it work? Like, am I meeting with you? Is it a group of dads that are all sharing stories and going, well, this is how we've done it. These are the things you need. Like, are there coaches or how does that work? Because dads are so busy. There's a multi-pronged approach to this. We've got video course that teaches you child custody action plan. Immediate, like this is what you need to do when you're going in front of the judge. Here's what you're telling. Here's the information pulled together. Here's how you do public speaking. That's our first video quarters. In that, we also have evidence. We explain how to use evidence in court and discovery, how to gather the evidence so that you can use it in court. It's all part of grad law school, which is the video courses. We also have weekly meetups. Every Thursday, we get together a bunch of guys and we're talking about They've got questions about how do I introduce this evidence? How do I overcome this objection? How do I write this declaration? Am I saying the right thing? Is my language too volatile? How do I make it not be volatile? How do I use tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity and Claude to improve my performance in writing? How do I use ChatGPT and Claude to take the emotion out of my emails? How do I use all of this AI to improve what he gets is going into family court. So that's our weekly meetings, and we talk about that. So it's kind of group coaching. They're quizzing me on questions. I'm teaching them what they need to know, but it's also dads coming together to share their wins. Now, is that you? Is that just with you, or do you have other people under you? No, it's all me right now. That is you. It's all me. That's you right now. And is that online or in person? And we have the weekly meetups so the dads can get the contact that they need with me and with each other because they need the support. A lot of these dads have been isolated because their new girlfriend or wife didn't like their friends, didn't like their family, control the social life. And now dads are like left out in the cold and they're going like, I don't have any friends anymore. Like, yeah, you don't have any friends anymore because she isolated you. That's by the way, with all the topic that their weekly meetups. WhatsApp group where dad's day to day can text each other and they text questions and they text funny things. You know, there's a lot of bad dad jokes. There's funny videos. There's I'm going through it. She just pulled this crap. What do I do? How do I handle it? There's my kids having a tantrum. What's it with you? What do you suggest? There's what's the best like baby carrier, like all kinds of information for dad on the text group. Okay. Okay. And then they also, if they individually have questions, they email me and we communicate through email. So that's Dallas Law School. It's weekly meetups. It's WhatsApp group. It's email support so that they can actually get what they need to be more effective going into family court. And how many people do you have for that? At the moment, we've got about 67 guys in the group. I've got about 4,000 on my email list. Okay. So we're growing. And the video part in the beginning, that's just video on demand. You've recorded those. They can get on. They could just watch those and do whatever. You watch the video. You get it. You know, there's a PDF that comes with it. So, like, here's a sample decoration. Sure. Exhibit list. We've got all of that. And all of that stuff is in my new book. Dad's shot. Because the action plan.
David Pisarra:Okay.
Matthew Brickman:which is available on Amazon and it's available on the website. If you go to dadslawschool.com, it could be pop up. And if you buy it on the website, you get a signed copy from me. Nice. Nice. All right. So badass bootcamp. What is that? Dad's badass bootcamp. It's a one day bootcamp and we're looking to do maybe Florida, maybe Texas in October. We haven't quite decided yet. It's possible I could do both. Right. A lot of work. But Dad's Badass Boot Camp is one day where we come in and we run through some exercises to gather the information that you need to show the judge. And we work on, here's what goes into your declaration. Here's why you're a good dad. And it's designed to, A, rebuild a man's self-esteem, because oftentimes they're lonely, isolated, have been beaten down for three to six years of... You're worthless. You're not good. You're negligent. You don't know. I can't handle you. You're not good enough. You don't make enough money. And so what we're trying to do is undo all of that negative programming with some exercises to be like, hey, here's 43 ways in which you're an awesome dad. Like, let's start here. Like, you need to start changing your perspective on yourself because that's what you're going to project to the judge. You don't think you're a good dad. It's going to come through. So you have to start by reestablishing your own sense of self-esteem, your own ego, not in a crazy ego, champion of the world kind of guy, but just like, I'm really a good guy. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not what she is portraying me to be. Correct. Right. Right. So that's, so a bootcamp is it's a one day event where we bring, you know, a bunch of guys together and we run them through some exercises, work on self-esteem. And then I go over evidence, discovery, why you're, First impression with the judge is not when you think it is. Most people think their first impression is when they walk in, and it's not. Yeah. So when they submit something to the court. Yeah, it's when you submit it. It's in that paperwork. And if you don't do a good job in that declaration, the judge already knows coming out, oh, this one's not got his act together. He's not going to get anything out of me. Right. So in California, dude, I mean, it sounds like there's a lot, a high percentage of pro se litigants. Is that, I mean, these dads? That's across the country. It's about 70% of family cases eventually. If they're kind of conflict, high conflict cases, they're eventually going to run out of money for the most part. And eventually, if you've got a high conflict personality on the other side, you're going to keep going back. So you have to learn how to fight for yourself. You have to learn how to represent yourself. So you're thinking about it like this. So if you take all the families that, because one of the things that's going on today is people aren't getting married. So they're not getting married. They're not getting divorced. They're not getting married. They're not getting divorced. They're still having kids. Yep. Paternity. What happens when you have a kid with a woman? Well, She's got all the rights and you got nothing. But Dave, I signed the birth certificate. No, it's not what you signed there. It's called the birth certificate. What it really is is a child support acknowledgement. Exactly. That's what you're really signing. Yeah. It's the I will pay for this child agreement. Yeah. If you don't have any rights... So dads have to go into court and say, yes, I'm the father. I want custody. I want rights. I want to have time with my kid. I want vacations. I want holidays. I want Monday to Friday so I can help them with homework. And so as a consequence of that, more and more dads are finding out like, oh, I actually do have to go to court. Right. Right. So. So have have you read any latest statistics on because I mean, I know that a lot of people are not getting married. You know, this whole new generation is not dealing with that. They are still having kids. So we've got paternity. Have you heard the latest statistics on paternity matters? Like what percentage of kids are being born paternity versus marriage? It's about 70 percent. Last time I checked. Is it that high? Okay, so last I checked. All right, so last, and this was a couple of years ago. This was a couple of years ago. They said 40% of the children being born are out of wedlock. Then you still have half of the marriages on average, sometimes higher, in divorce. So a total of about 70% to 72% of the children are on a parenting plan of some sort. But you're saying, like, you've heard that paternity is up 70% of the kids are being born. That's what I'm seeing. Yeah. Wow. The reality is people don't get married until later. Later. Yeah. When they're 20. Yeah. Maybe getting married in your thirties and forties. But if you look around, like, like in my world, I get an awful lot of dads, 24 to 40. We've got that first baby mama. Yeah. Maybe they've got a wife. Maybe they're going through a divorce. But they've got that first kid out there. Because if you think about it, when we're young, we make impulsive decisions. It happens. And it's happening more and more. Because fewer and fewer people want to get married.
David Pisarra:Yeah.
Matthew Brickman:I mean, I had my daughter who's almost 30 this year. She'll be 30 at the end of the year. I had her when I was 21. And then I had my son at 23. So, you know, now what's interesting is my daughter didn't get married to almost 25 and my 27-year-old son still isn't married. In fact, he's still living with his mom. So, yeah, I mean, they're getting married and doing things later and later. And luckily, my 27-year-old does not have a baby mama or a kid. a kid. I mean, I did tell him, I told him the same thing that you just said, which is just because, and I say this to people all the time, just because you have a child with somebody, if you're not married, you have no rights or obligations. You just have a responsibility that's financial. That's it. You don't get a say. You don't get time sharing. You don't get decision making. You just have an obligation to support. And yeah, same thing. I'm on the birth certificate. Yeah, so you've acknowledged I'm going I'm supposed to pay support. I'm not, but I'm supposed to. And so, yeah, same thing. So, in California, because Florida just changed their laws two years ago. So, we're almost July 2025. July 2023, Florida turned family law inside out, upside down, and fixed everything. I would say almost most of the brokenness. So what they did in Florida was there's a rebuttable presumption of 50-50 time sharing mom and dad, period, end of story. If you don't think 50-50 is appropriate, there are 20 best interest factors in the statute that you have to overcome. Judge has to make a specific written finding of all 20. or else it's 50-50. Equitable distribution. Everything from date of marriage to date of filing, split at 50-50. Of course, unless there's like marital dissipation and waste or maybe non-comingled premarital asset, right? Alimony. We have a calculator now. So we have need versus ability to pay. You've got to prove need and ability to pay. Then you've got about 13 factors. If you can get through all of that, we now have a calculator. We put your income. It tells us the maximum duration, the maximum amount. Done. Child support, it's a statutory calculation. We look at the parenting plan. Then we look at maybe alimony, if any. It spits out a number. You're done. I mean, it's like, I now tell people, for a court, it's really simple. 50-50, 50-50, calculator, calculator, get out. What makes it difficult is people... People make it difficult. For the court, it's easy. And so we're not dealing with, at least in Florida now, like pre-2023, a lot of the argument was, I want 50-50. No, I'm not giving you 50-50. Well, I want 50-50. Well, we have to show. And then you have to go through this whole evidentiary hearing, whereas now it's like, okay, we're starting at 50-50 and you've got to prove why 50-50 is not in the best interest of the children. And there's 20 factors or else it is 50-50. How is it now in your opinion? California, because especially with all the dads, you and the dad's law school that you're doing, it sounds like it's not so easy. Well, so here's the thing. Basically, our system is the same as yours. Okay. Like the calculators are pretty much the same. The presumption is pretty much there. We don't have the exact same language in California. Both parents should share equally and have frequent and continuing contact. We don't have the clear-cut language you guys have. Maybe someday we'll actually get there. God only knows. What we also have, and I don't know how this plays into your system, is domestic violence rules. That's where it screws everything up. Because the domestic violence takes precedence and throws all of that child custody stuff out the window. Because as soon as you're a woman and you have an abuser in your life, you're now the presumed better parent in California. And so the abuser... shouldn't have custody of the kids unless they've done anger management classes, batters and intervention classes, co-parenting classes, parenting classes, which are not the same as co-parenting classes. You've got to have usually reunification therapy, supervised visitation at $150 an hour for two hours Saturday twice a month. It's designed so that the victim, the abuser, can have more custody because that translates into, say it with me, Child support. I was going to say more money. So, yes. Right? So, a lot of times the accusations are money. Domestic violence that just excuses things. Okay. So, in our 20 factors of best interest, one of the factors. So, we've got A through T. And M, evidence of domestic violence, sexual violence, child abuse, child abandonment, child neglect, regardless of whether prior or pending action relating to the issue is being brought. So it's just one of the factors, but it does not supersede or negate the entire thing. It's just one of the factors. So therefore, Florida is going to be ahead of us in terms of being a little bit more liberal? When it comes to custody, California, we have these domestic violence lobby is super powerful. The women's shelters are super powerful. There's a lot of money behind them with federal grants. They really run a lot of games in our society in California. And they don't see their own behavior, unsurprisingly. But as a consequence of that, the domestic violence laws have been written just, in my mind and many lawyers' minds, they're just off the charts. They've lost the mission. It's insane. We have this thing, coercive control. I don't know what coercive control in a relationship is. It seems like it's one of those incredibly flexible, giant terms that you get to drive a 747 through. Yeah. But so, so course of control, like in what context, like whatever you are, are you representing a woman? It's whatever you want it to be. Are you representing a man? So that's the problem. So that's the problem. It's just this broad stroke that you can apply anywhere and in anything. Correct. Force of control. Correct. Wow. He isolated me from my family, wouldn't let me talk to my mother, therefore he's coercively controlling me and he's abusive. Okay. Got it. His side of that's going to be, I couldn't have any kind of relations unless I did X, Y, and Z. Is that coercive control? No, because a person has a right to say no to sex whenever they want. Okay. So you're using sex as a tool on the one hand, but that's not coercive control. It's just as loosey-goosey and stunning.
Syndey Mitchell:If you have a comment or question regarding anything that we discussed, email us at info at iChatMediation.com. That's info at iChatMediation.com. And stay tuned to hear your shout out and have your question answered here on the show.
Matthew Brickman:For more information about my services or to schedule your mediation with me, either in person or using my iChat Mediation virtual platform built by Cisco Communications, visit me online at imediating.com. Call me at 561-262-9121, toll free at 877-822-1479, or email me at mbrickman at iChatMediation.com.