In this episode of 'Doing Divorce Different, Lesa interviews David Pisarra, an attorney, founder of Dad's Law School, and podcast host. David shares his unique journey into family law and provides crucial insights for dads navigating the family court system. He emphasizes the importance of preparation, documentation, and mindset for fathers fighting for custody. The discussion also touches on the significant role dads play in their children's lives and the common mistakes they make in court. Lisa and David conclude by highlighting resources available through Dad's Law School to help dads present their best case in court.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome

00:23 David Pizarra's Background and Journey

03:45 Challenges Dads Face in Family Court

08:23 Mindset and Preparation for Dads

13:38 Common Mistakes Dads Make

19:02 Final Thoughts and Resources

Find David at

ghil@dadslawschool.com

And Lesa @saddleuplive

Welcome listeners.

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I'm thrilled to have you here today.

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We're doing something different

on doing divorce different.

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I don't know that I've ever

had an expert, a dad expert on.

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So I've got David Pizarra

and he is an attorney.

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He's the founder of Dad's a law school.

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He's got a podcast.

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He's an author.

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And the reason we're going to,

well, we're going to get to

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know David a little bit more.

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I love to get their authentic

stories and I don't know what it is.

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So I can't wait to hear, but

another reason that David's here.

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I know a lot of my listeners who

listen to doing divorce different.

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Well, a lot of them are women.

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And a lot of them are doing mediations.

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However, it's still really

important to be aware of the laws.

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So if you're going through a mediation,

I still think this information is

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really important for you to know.

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You need to understand.

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You know what dads need to know.

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And if you're a woman, I think this

could be very enlightening as well

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if you're on the other side of this.

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So that's why I'm so

excited to have David here.

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So David, thank you so much for taking

the time to join us and welcome.

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David Pisarra: Thank you, Lisa.

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It's my pleasure being here.

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You know, getting the message out

because there's so many people.

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who are representing themselves

these days, and they don't know what

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they're doing going in the family

court, which is why I started Dath

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Law School, is to help people become

more educated, even about just the

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basics of what's the judge looking for?

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What do they need to know about you?

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So I'm really grateful for this

opportunity to share with you.

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Lesa Koski: All right.

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Do you have any, um, stories like,

did you go through this yourself or

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did you just practice law for years

and see that this was very needed?

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David Pisarra: So I'm a bit of a.

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Whack a doodle story because I'm

a single gay man with no kids.

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You're not gay!

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Okay, so there's a bit of like,

what the hell did that happen?

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Lesa Koski: Yeah!

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David Pisarra: It all

started about 25 years ago.

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My partner and I, who I met

literally second day of law school.

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We became best friends

all through law school.

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We're opening up our office and I'm

like, okay, what do you want to practice?

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And he said, family law.

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And I was like, Oh no, gross.

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And I wanted to go to business law

and corporate law and help people

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like become captains of industry.

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And I would go because I'm the rain maker.

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I'm sort of the marketing

head of the firm.

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And my job would be to go to the chamber

of commerce and the Rotary club and the

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Elks club and talk about what we do.

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And I would say, I'm Dave Fezzaro.

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I want to do family.

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I mean, I want to do.

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Business law, and I can help

you with your corporations.

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And by the way, my partner does

family law and they would come

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up to me afterwards and they'd be

like, can he lower my child support?

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Can he get me out of this marriage?

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I got to get rid of the divorce.

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Before I knew it, his calendar

was full and his calendar started

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spilling into my calendar.

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And in about six months, all of a sudden

my calendar was full of family law.

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And 24 years later, I'm a divorce lawyer.

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And I'm like, I love

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Lesa Koski: it.

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Well, David, I have, we have

something in common because I

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have been married for 32 years.

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I have never been divorced, but

I know it's not interesting.

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However, I've, you know, it's kind

of that story of my surgeon doesn't

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necessarily have had to have gone

through the surgery that I need.

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And, you know, I've been through

really hard times, really hard times.

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And so I know how to deal with hard.

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And that's what it is, right?

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So, so we are similar that way.

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So I'm so glad to know that about you.

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And okay, so now let's talk about what

our dads, what do they need to know

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when they're going to family court?

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What's important?

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David Pisarra: So the first most

important thing is it's not a fair system.

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It's not a system where you're going

to walk in and be like, I'm a great dad

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and walk out with 50 percent custody.

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Not going to happen because what's going

to happen is mom's going to come into

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court And the reality is this, 70 percent

of all couples who split up and they've

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got a kid, they're fighting over the kid,

Never see the inside of the courtroom.

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They may hire a paralegal or they both

have lawyers and negotiate the settlement

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and they get it all done on paper.

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And that's the last time they

ever deal with it because they're

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basically normal, healthy people who

are able to come to an agreement and

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recognize co parenting and equal care.

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Equal share child custody is

in the kid's best interest.

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Let's put the children's

interests above our own.

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If they're not fighting in court,

30% end up in court to some degree.

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There's a little bit of a struggle over

like, how much is the child support?

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And I want more control because

I've got an ego involved.

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And the reality is if you're going

into family court, probably you're

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fighting over custody because

one party has an ego involved.

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And child custody translates

into child support.

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So dads need to recognize you got to

show up different because you can't

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walk in and be like, I'm a great dad.

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She'll tell you.

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I'm like, no, but she was going to tell

him that you wouldn't be in family court.

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If she really thought you're a

great dad, you wouldn't be fighting.

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Like, come on now.

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And so I had to oftentimes get

them to get out of their mindset

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of, This is the woman I love.

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This is the family I protect and move

them into, no, you gotta be a little bit

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more, I need to protect my interests.

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I have to come first because I

need to be there for my kids.

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I have to show up for my kids in a

way that I'm not used to, that I've

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never done before, and no one's ever

told me about, so you got to show

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up in court and you got to be ready.

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To convince the judge

that you're a great dad.

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You can't just walk in and

say, you're a great dad.

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You gotta be able to prove it.

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'cause what we're doing, really what

we're doing here is we're convincing

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the judge, we're selling ourself

to the judge because the judge

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has to know, like, and trust you.

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With children, so they're

naturally like skeptical because

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what are they hearing from mom?

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He's never around.

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He doesn't know what their interests are.

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He doesn't know how to parent.

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He's negligent.

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He's too busy working, he

doesn't work enough something.

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All kinds of just stuff, and that's

all the judge is really hearing.

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Balance that with, I'm a great dad.

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Well, come on, dude, judge.

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Isn't going to buy that.

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So you've got to show up

with more information.

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Lesa Koski: Okay.

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Keep going.

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I'm, I'm listening.

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I'm so excited.

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I'm going to talk about mindset

when you are done with this thought.

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Oh yeah.

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David Pisarra: Mindsets a year.

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We can have a whole show with that alone.

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So the way in which you do that

is dads have to show up with

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what's called a declaration.

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Basically it's a letter to the judge

that says, I'm a great dad and here's

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23 reasons why I'm a great dad.

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And here's the proof that shows that

when I say I'm showing up for my kids,

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here's my daily calendar that shows the

times I've had my kids, what we've done,

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receipts from movies, receipts from water

parks, receipts from karate classes.

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whatever it is you're doing, you're

showing the judge, I'm a great dad,

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you're proving your case, and the

reason why is because judge has all this

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information from mom, and needs to have

the counterbalance information from dad,

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so now the judge can look at you, okay,

well wait a second mom, you said he's

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never there, but he's got a calendar that

shows for the last six months, he's used

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every single vacation day that he has.

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He's used every parenting

plan that he's offered.

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So if he's not showing up

enough, why are you gatekeeping?

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Oh, oh, okay.

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Now the tables are turning.

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Now the judge is going to start

seeing like what's really going on.

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And so it is very much a mindset.

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Dads have to A, go in and sell

themselves to the judge, B, they have

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to know how to prove themselves with

actual evidence, and C, they have

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to know how to use that evidence.

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In court to prove their great dad

and that mom's lying about what?

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He's not a good dad.

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Lesa Koski: Mm hmm

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David Pisarra: Okay,

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Lesa Koski: yeah, so I can't help it the

coach in me when you say mindset I think,

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okay, before he can go in and convince

the judge, he has to believe it, right?

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Because you, you have to believe it.

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You have to believe it

to change your mindset.

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And I think, you know, my heart goes

out to a lot of dads because I work

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with a lot of them and they haven't had

a big part maybe in their kids lives.

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Maybe there's a stay at

home mom, but they want to.

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Right.

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And things are shifting and changing and

maybe they need to have the belief that

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they're learning to become a great dad.

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So preparing before a mediation, before

a court case on how you're going to

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do that, getting your ducks in a row,

starting to work towards that, I think.

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Would be a huge.

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Huge place to start.

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David Pisarra: It is, but, and, but I

wanna, I wanna clarify one thing you said.

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Okay.

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Like, like he's been working and maybe

he hasn't been a part of the kid's life.

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He's probably been a bigger part

of the kid's life than anybody

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wants to acknowledge, you know, if,

if they're still living together

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and dad's coming home from work.

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And then mowing along, or taking

out the trash, or demonstrating

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how to be a good partner.

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He is showing up if he's

there wrestling with the kids.

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And there's not always times that

moms want to acknowledge that.

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Moms don't always want to acknowledge

that playtime when dads and kids

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are just roughhousing on the floor.

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That's really crucial to

a child's development.

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And they don't want to

acknowledge that that has value.

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So they devalue a lot of the

time dad is with the kids

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because there's a reason for it.

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The more time they have, the more

money they get in child support.

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Child custody translates

directly into child support.

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And we say like, Oh no,

those are totally separate.

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Lesa Koski: It's always mixed.

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David Pisarra: That's a bunch of bull.

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Lesa Koski: I know.

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And you know,

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David Pisarra: dependent on the

other and not have them be an issue.

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Lesa Koski: It's always an issue.

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Even if they say, I mean,

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David Pisarra: the dads actually

have an impact on their kids.

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And they have an influence on

their children that gets hidden.

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It's ghost time because

it's not seen as valuable.

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You know, oftentimes women want to say,

well, I was stay at home parent and

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like my emotional labor and I'm cleaning

and I'm doing the laundry and I'm doing

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the cleaning and nobody's valuing that.

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Well, guess what?

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We do value that.

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And we value dad's time

with the kids as well.

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And I

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Lesa Koski: want to right and I want

to reiterate because i'm so glad

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you brought that up I didn't want to

say that they weren't valued because

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the mom was a stay at home mom But I

want them to hear what you just said

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so that they value not to mention

supporting your family financially,

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giving them a life is a huge value.

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Putting your time in is a

huge value to your children.

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So I did not want to say that.

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So I'm so glad that you picked up on that.

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Um, and that is so true.

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And I think it's just important.

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For the men and the women

listening to realize that value.

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I mean, if you are so fortunate to be

able to work together on your divorce

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and your parenting plan, realize

that, that that's an important piece.

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So I'm glad that you said that.

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David Pisarra: And most are luckily,

I mean, we're like, when we, when we

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see the high conflict cases, those

are, someone's got a personality

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disorder, you know, that's when

we're dealing with really, there's

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a borderline, there's a narcissist.

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There's something else going on here.

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In reality,

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Lesa Koski: in reality, I do find that

there are a lot of people who even if

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they really care about their kids have

a very difficult time really truly

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focusing on what is best for the children

because it's so embedded with the,

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the disagreement between the couple.

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And it's just.

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Yeah.

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That's such a, that's a struggle.

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That's a struggle even in, yeah, yeah.

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David Pisarra: Okay.

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Because it gets wrapped up in all of

those feelings of you're abandoning me.

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I'm not good enough.

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How come you're abandoning me?

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Why am I not loved enough?

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Why are you not doing the way things?

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Things the way I want them to be done,

and there's control issues and, and it

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all boils over and it spills into all

these other areas and, and it's hard

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for people to bring it back down and

recognize like, Hey, we are separate.

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We need to focus on this issue.

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And that's what the judge is there for.

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The judge is supposed to kind of

be the oil and the water and like

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bring things down to like, then

come up with a real good decision.

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Lesa Koski: Right.

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Which

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David Pisarra: is why the

judge needs more information.

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I was at a dinner a couple weeks back

talking to judges and I said, what's

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the one thing you want dads to know?

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And they're like, they've got

to give us more information.

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We just don't know enough about them.

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Lesa Koski: Yeah.

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Yeah.

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David Pisarra: And that's why Dad's Law

School was created, was to teach dads

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how to give the judge what they need.

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So you can get what you want

and what the children need.

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Lesa Koski: And that's what's important.

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Okay.

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So my next question was going to be

if you could like put this into three

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top mistakes that dads make, but

I'm kind of getting a guess on what

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those answers might be, but go ahead.

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If I were to ask you that, what

are some mistakes that dads make?

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David Pisarra: So the first

one is they're not prepared.

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They don't know what they don't know.

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They haven't really looked at it.

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They don't know what to value.

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They don't have what to put in their

paperwork to show to the judge.

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The second one is they think their

first impression is when they walk

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in the court, and they're wrong.

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The first impression you make with the

judge is in your paperwork, because any

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judge who's worth their salt has read

all of the paperwork before they come

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out of chambers and take the bench.

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They've already made a decision,

conscious or unconscious, about

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who's ready, who's prepared.

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They've got an impression of you.

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Based solely on what you file

with that, which is why when mom

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files, a stack of papers, this,

that, and dad's got, you know, yes,

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Lesa Koski: he's holding up a post it.

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David Pisarra: Come on, dude.

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Like you want to show up

for your kids show up.

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And the third one is the mindset.

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Third one is they, they

still slip back into that.

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She's the better parent

because she's the mom.

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She's more nurturing

because she's the mom.

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I should just let my kids

go because she's the mom.

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I can't do that because she's the

mother of my children and they have

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to move from that like very dependent

relationship to an independent.

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I have to have my own

relationship with my kids.

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She has to have her relationship.

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Lesa Koski: I feel like we could

talk about that forever too.

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I mean, that's such a huge thing.

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And that is.

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I find with people, it's

like things are changing.

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You are not married.

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You know, now it's, you both

have to step up in different

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ways than you have in the past.

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David Pisarra: Right.

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Lesa Koski: I mean, it affects,

and I think that sometimes people

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don't think through that before

they move forward with a divorce.

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Go ahead.

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You were going to say something.

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David Pisarra: So this is one of those

where it's like, I walk a very fine

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line on this one because it's a very hot

button topic where I say many women make

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a huge mistake in divorcing a good guy

because they think that they're going

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to get so much better because their

girlfriends are giving them that, Oh,

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you go girl, you deserve so much better.

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He's not that great.

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He isn't doing this.

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He's not doing that.

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You deserve more.

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You And it's like, honey, I

got to tell you something.

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I've seen an awful lot

of couples break up.

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And most of the time, the second husbands

are not that different from the first.

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Lesa Koski: And you know,

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David Pisarra: you're just not going to

go from Joe, the truck driver, standard

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American guy to like, Oh, I don't know.

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Let's pick a celebrity Brad Pitt.

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You're not making that leap socially.

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You're gonna marry another guy

who's pretty much in that same

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socioeconomic era that you are.

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So, unless they're like alcohol

abuse, drug abuse, physically abusive,

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if they're just a normal average

guy, you're probably gonna end up

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with another normal average guy.

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Lesa Koski: Well, and I think

what you're saying, I mean,

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the statistics speak to that.

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Second marriages break up way

more than first marriages.

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And I like that you, you brought that

up because It, it's so odd that I'm in

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this business because I love marriage

and I believe in marriage and my husband

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and I have been through stuff, right?

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And so, um, I like to help

people stay together when they

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can because of what you said.

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And a lot of times if

you can work on yourself.

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You can save your marriage.

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It's really interesting if you can make

some changes, but at the very least, if

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you are going through a divorce for some

reason, then you feel like it's a must

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work on yourself, work on yourself through

this, after this, before you Connect with

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another person or your spouse because you

need to be able to heal and find someone

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that's really going to be a good fit.

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So I love that you brought that up to

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David Pisarra: you said you've been

married like 32 years in 32 years.

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How many of those years has

your husband made you happy?

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Lesa Koski: Well, here's the deal.

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I don't really think that we're, I think

what you learn is you make yourself happy.

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Bingo!

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David Pisarra: Because you can't,

you cannot make someone else happy.

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Happiness is an inside job.

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That's why it's so important for

dads to show up because they have

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to mimic that for their children.

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They have to model for them.

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They have to mentor their kids.

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This is an inside job.

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And that's one of the main roles.

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Fathers bring the parenting.

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Lesa Koski: Yeah, I love that.

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I love that so much that it's a

PR I'm looking at the time and I'm

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like, this is the perfect time to in

doing divorce different and David,

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I, what I want my listeners to know.

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If you want to hear more from David,

he's going to be on saddle up live too.

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And we're going to talk about

how dad's roles have changed.

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And I'm so excited to talk about

this because my son is a dad and

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I, you know, and I, my husband

was a great father, very involved.

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I can't even believe.

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How things have changed.

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So I'm really excited to talk

to you about that listeners.

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If you need more information, we're

going to have David's information in the

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show notes, reach out to him, find him.

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How do they, how do they

reach out to your website?

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Is that the best way?

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David Pisarra: The best way

is you go to dadslawschool.

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com.

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You got, I've got free stuff on there.

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I've got a membership for dads who

want to like join and get, we've

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got monthly meetups twice a month.

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We've got video courses that teach

dads how to write that declaration,

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how to use evidence in court.

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It's designed to give you

what you need to prove to the

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judge that you're a great dad.

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Lesa Koski: Perfect.

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Perfect.

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David, thank you so much for joining me.

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David Pisarra: Thank you, Lisa.