August 14, 2025 • 10 mins
DAD's Child Custody Action Plan: Insider Secrets to Family Court Success (American Ghost Media, May 16, 2025)? David is a dedicated family law attorney with over 25 years of experience advocating for dads in custody and divorce cases. He equips fathers with the legal knowledge and the courtroom skills they need. He can talk about real strategies and give insider tips to men looking to win back their role as a present and powerful father.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hell on good morning everybody. How you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm wow, this is Dave Cizara.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Dave, how are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Man?
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I mean, I mean you're talking about a subject here
that his long time coming. I mean we've waited how
many decades to have something like this?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Probably all of them? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yeah, because I often wondered about my own father. What
would have happened if my dad would have won his
court case and I would have gone his direction? Would
I be a broadcaster of forty six years?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Most likely you'd be just as successful, if not more so?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Really, and what do you say more so?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, because studies have shown that dad single fathers are
as effective at raising children as normal heterosexual couples. A normal, stable,
functional family produces children as productive in society as a
single father. So odds are you would have been just
as good as you are today.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Wow, that's amazing. That's amazing. The name of the book
is Dad's Child Custody Action Plan. You really make us
interactive with this book. You make us think you and
to help plan things out. It's almost like doing a
trust or a will. You're giving this that game plan.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Well, that's the goal, because dads go into court and
they think they know what they're doing, and they say,
I'm a great dad, and the judges heard that from
every father. Ever, so dads have to go in and
say something more because judge judges aren't getting enough information
from the fathers. And so what I did was I
created a book and an outline that says, here's what
you need to tell the judge, here's how you get
(01:27):
that information with my kid inventory. And when you do that,
now you're ready to go argue for more time with
your kids, which is what everybody really wants.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
But isn't that the job of the lawyer to do
that kind of stuff? I mean, shouldn't you be selling
this directly to lawyers as well?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Well, you know, that's an interesting question because lawyers don't
teach their clients how new and they need to do
so when a client runs out of money, they've now
spent ten twenty one hundred and two hundred thousand dollars,
but they don't know what they're doing. And that's the
problem for many dads is they run out of money
because they're paying for their lawyer, mom's lawyer, they're paying
(02:01):
child support, they may be paying for a supervised visit,
they may be paying for anger management classes, batters, interventioning classes,
parenting classes, co parenting classes. By the time they're done,
there's nothing left to hire someone else, so they have
to learn how to do it themselves. And that's why
I wrote this book, because there's so many dads that
can't afford a lawyer to do it for them.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
So did you write this book because you went through this?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
No, I'm a divorce lawyer for twenty seven years. I'm
the most unusual champion for kids there is. I'm a single,
gay man with not even a dog.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
How do you get a judge to physically listen because
even with my child support, that judge wanted nothing to
do with me. Just pay your bill, buddy, and let's
make it happen.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, usually those are two different courts. So you've got
child support court is one, and they don't care about
child custody. They just care about the dollars.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
You've got the child custody judge and they're supposed to
care about what's in the child's best interest. That's the judge,
So you need to get their attention. That's a judge.
You got to say more than just I'm a great dat.
You got to walk in and be like, I'm an
awesome father. Here's forty three reasons why I'm an awesome father,
And here's all the proof that backs up what I'm
saying is true. Because Mom's gonna come in and say,
(03:14):
now he's lying that bs, he's negligent. He doesn't know
anything about the kids, he doesn't know their food allergies,
he doesn't know other doctors, he doesn't know even other
shoe sizes. It's always the shoe size for some reason.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
So now when you bring that things like that up,
I mean right away, you know the fathers do have
to face the lies, the exaggerations. How do you keep
that candy code and plastic bathroom mirror smile intact and
you don't become frumpy in front of a judge.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Well, first off, you get ready for it. No, it's
knowing it's gonna happen, Okay, So by being prepared, you're
ready to hear it and not react to it. Two,
as I tell dads, you need to get your anger
worked out before you go into court. And whether that
means you're in a man's group like my VIP program
at DAS Law School dot com or you're working with
the therapist, or you're working with the men's group through
(03:59):
your church, what have where it is, get that anger
worked out outside the courtroom, because you don't want to
be angry in front of a judge. You want to
be assertive. You want to be able to state your case.
You want to be ready to say your honor. She's
saying at every see anytime with the kids. But here
are all the pictures of us doing things, here's all
the receipts, here's the proof. And then what you've done
(04:20):
is prove that you actually are active and engaged and
be moms playing a little fast and loose with fact
and judges don't like that.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
It's almost like going to a judge judy show. I mean,
I mean the way that you're saying, do your homework,
do your prep, and go in there with confidence and courage.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
That's exactly it. Because when dads go in with a
prepared statement, when they know what the evidence is, when
they're ready to go in and use the texts that
they have that show that mom is withholding the kids
and give them actually admitted as evidence, then a judge
can rely on it. Then a judge can be looking
at you and saying, you know what, sir, you are
showing up. You are entitled more time with your child.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
One of the things that you cover here because you
know how guys they like to dress down. It's time
to be a big boy and dress up, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Well, it is time to dress up. But we're not
talking tucks and tails here. What we're talking is clean,
pressed shirt, whether that's a button down, whether that's a
professional polo going in just being who you are, but
prepared and looking a little bit polished. You're not going
to walk in with a radiold wife beater on and
some flip flops. Don't do that. That's not showing respect
(05:28):
for the court. But if you're a general worker who's
got you know, Chino's, and just a regular professional polo,
that's totally fine. So long this is clean.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Well, one of the things that I'm seeing there's an
evolution going on right now. When you go to a
grocery store, I'm starting to see a lot of fathers
with their kids. My dad never took me to the
grocery store, but I am so fascinated with how many
fathers are teaching their kids how to use an ATM card,
how to punch in the numbers, how to really be
interactive with buying something as simple as groceries.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
That's true because dads are pig dads are stepping up.
You know, younger generations are looking at this and going,
I didn't have enough time with my father. I want
to be a father. I want more time with my kids,
and I'm entitled to it because we're looking at as
a society that is radically changing and we need to
be ready for those changes and address them. And the
court system is a little bit behind in that. The
(06:21):
court system needs to be stepping it up, and the
best way to do that is to have dads ready,
being able to show why they're great dads and get
a judge to agree with them.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Please do not move. There's more with David Pisara coming
up next. These are very valuable things that you need
to talk into your back pocket. Dad's child Custody Action
Plan from David Pisara. What about leadership skills? I mean,
we all think that dads are automatic, you know leaders,
Oh man, they lead the household. They're good, they're good.
But you know, I'm no real good person when it
(06:52):
comes to fatherhood. I mean, I have two grandkids and
I will still never call myself great.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Well, it's an interesting thing when you talk about leadership
for fathers, because men generally know how to handle leadership,
and they know how to set boundaries, and that's one
of the biggest things they bring to parenting is setting
boundaries and being exploratory in the world. Dad's bring a
sense of enthusiasm and enjoyment to life that children really
(07:18):
need because it engages their mind. And studies have shown
that when a father is involved with a child and
is out exploring and explaining and throwing the kid up
in the air and having fun, putting a little bit
of stable risk into an environment, it allows a child
to become more adaptable. They do better in school, they
have better vocabulary, they have less problems with authority, they're
(07:41):
less likely to end up in the jail system, they're
look likely to end up with drugs and subst abuse problems.
Fathers are crucial to a child development.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, don't you think that we need to break that
chain though when it comes to purchasing your child's attention
and love, because I see that a lot too, where
somebody's out there at the movie because dad makes it fun.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Well, I do. I do agree that you know, gaz
should be not having to pay for access to their children.
But one of the problems is is when they are
having to pay for access to their kids, you know,
they're that quote unquote Disneyland dad. They only get the weekends.
They want to maximize their time. They want to maximize
the amount of memories they have. Whereas if they had
a fifty to fifty regular schedule and they had the
(08:23):
regular downtime of okay times, do your bath, okay times,
do laundry, okay time to do homework, the regular parenting time,
it would be more equal and they'd be more motivated
to do those things.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
I am a show prep whore, in other words, I've
got to show prep everything days in advance. So and
I sit here and I read about how fathers don't
get organized before they go into court. Why do we
try to wing it all the time. There's no answers
in winging it.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Well, that is certainly true statement, Particularly when it comes
to court. You've got to know what you have because
one important things when you're going into court is you
may have three hundred text messages you can't filter through
three hundred text messages and find the most important one
when you've got fifteen minutes in front of a judge
to make your case and you can't remember exactly where
(09:12):
that one text message is that you're trying to use.
That's why I tell dads you need to be able
to sort through that stuff. Have cherry pick the ones
you want to use. Be ready to use the evidence
scripts that are in the back of my book to
show how to get this piece of crucial evidence admitted
by the judge the judge can rely on it. You
need to have the script on how do you actually
(09:32):
mark an identify and exhibit how to move it into
evidence that the judge will rely upon it.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
When you've been accused of being an absent dad and
there you are in the courtroom with other dads that
are going through the same thing. Boy, that is the
most silent room on the planet.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Absolutely, because they're all facing the same problems. Because they're
all thinking they're going to go in say I'm a
great dad. The Judge's going to give them their fifty
percent custody and that's going to be enough. Every judge
I've talked to has said it's not enough. Need more
and more information from dads, because moms come in armed
for bear. Moms come in with calendars and schedules and
color coded yellow stickies all over a piece of paper,
(10:10):
ready to prove that dad's negligent and never around, and
dads aren't ready to fight that stuff to kind of lose.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah, yeah, Where can people go to find out more
about you? And why aren't you hosting a podcast expressing
these words?
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Well, they can go to Dad's lawschool dot com and
get my book and join our VIP program which teaches
dads how to prepare for court. And my podcast is
actually a development of my producers on me. He's like,
you've got to get this thing done. We've watched the
first one and now we've got a whole bunch of
other work going on.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
It requires work. I get it, But many this is
information that all men could use.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Absolutely excellent.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Please come back to the show anytime in the future.
The door is always going to be open for you. David.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Thanks, I appreciate it. Have a great day.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
You'd be brilliant. Okay, bye bye,
Hell on good morning everybody. How you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm wow, this is Dave Cizara.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Dave, how are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Man?
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I mean, I mean you're talking about a subject here
that his long time coming. I mean we've waited how
many decades to have something like this?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Probably all of them? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yeah, because I often wondered about my own father. What
would have happened if my dad would have won his
court case and I would have gone his direction? Would
I be a broadcaster of forty six years?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Most likely you'd be just as successful, if not more so?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Really, and what do you say more so?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, because studies have shown that dad single fathers are
as effective at raising children as normal heterosexual couples. A normal, stable,
functional family produces children as productive in society as a
single father. So odds are you would have been just
as good as you are today.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Wow, that's amazing. That's amazing. The name of the book
is Dad's Child Custody Action Plan. You really make us
interactive with this book. You make us think you and
to help plan things out. It's almost like doing a
trust or a will. You're giving this that game plan.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Well, that's the goal, because dads go into court and
they think they know what they're doing, and they say,
I'm a great dad, and the judges heard that from
every father. Ever, so dads have to go in and
say something more because judge judges aren't getting enough information
from the fathers. And so what I did was I
created a book and an outline that says, here's what
you need to tell the judge, here's how you get
(01:27):
that information with my kid inventory. And when you do that,
now you're ready to go argue for more time with
your kids, which is what everybody really wants.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
But isn't that the job of the lawyer to do
that kind of stuff? I mean, shouldn't you be selling
this directly to lawyers as well?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Well, you know, that's an interesting question because lawyers don't
teach their clients how new and they need to do
so when a client runs out of money, they've now
spent ten twenty one hundred and two hundred thousand dollars,
but they don't know what they're doing. And that's the
problem for many dads is they run out of money
because they're paying for their lawyer, mom's lawyer, they're paying
(02:01):
child support, they may be paying for a supervised visit,
they may be paying for anger management classes, batters, interventioning classes,
parenting classes, co parenting classes. By the time they're done,
there's nothing left to hire someone else, so they have
to learn how to do it themselves. And that's why
I wrote this book, because there's so many dads that
can't afford a lawyer to do it for them.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
So did you write this book because you went through this?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
No, I'm a divorce lawyer for twenty seven years. I'm
the most unusual champion for kids there is. I'm a single,
gay man with not even a dog.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
How do you get a judge to physically listen because
even with my child support, that judge wanted nothing to
do with me. Just pay your bill, buddy, and let's
make it happen.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, usually those are two different courts. So you've got
child support court is one, and they don't care about
child custody. They just care about the dollars.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
You've got the child custody judge and they're supposed to
care about what's in the child's best interest. That's the judge,
So you need to get their attention. That's a judge.
You got to say more than just I'm a great dat.
You got to walk in and be like, I'm an
awesome father. Here's forty three reasons why I'm an awesome father,
And here's all the proof that backs up what I'm
saying is true. Because Mom's gonna come in and say,
(03:14):
now he's lying that bs, he's negligent. He doesn't know
anything about the kids, he doesn't know their food allergies,
he doesn't know other doctors, he doesn't know even other
shoe sizes. It's always the shoe size for some reason.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
So now when you bring that things like that up,
I mean right away, you know the fathers do have
to face the lies, the exaggerations. How do you keep
that candy code and plastic bathroom mirror smile intact and
you don't become frumpy in front of a judge.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Well, first off, you get ready for it. No, it's
knowing it's gonna happen, Okay, So by being prepared, you're
ready to hear it and not react to it. Two,
as I tell dads, you need to get your anger
worked out before you go into court. And whether that
means you're in a man's group like my VIP program
at DAS Law School dot com or you're working with
the therapist, or you're working with the men's group through
(03:59):
your church, what have where it is, get that anger
worked out outside the courtroom, because you don't want to
be angry in front of a judge. You want to
be assertive. You want to be able to state your case.
You want to be ready to say your honor. She's
saying at every see anytime with the kids. But here
are all the pictures of us doing things, here's all
the receipts, here's the proof. And then what you've done
(04:20):
is prove that you actually are active and engaged and
be moms playing a little fast and loose with fact
and judges don't like that.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
It's almost like going to a judge judy show. I mean,
I mean the way that you're saying, do your homework,
do your prep, and go in there with confidence and courage.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
That's exactly it. Because when dads go in with a
prepared statement, when they know what the evidence is, when
they're ready to go in and use the texts that
they have that show that mom is withholding the kids
and give them actually admitted as evidence, then a judge
can rely on it. Then a judge can be looking
at you and saying, you know what, sir, you are
showing up. You are entitled more time with your child.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
One of the things that you cover here because you
know how guys they like to dress down. It's time
to be a big boy and dress up, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Well, it is time to dress up. But we're not
talking tucks and tails here. What we're talking is clean,
pressed shirt, whether that's a button down, whether that's a
professional polo going in just being who you are, but
prepared and looking a little bit polished. You're not going
to walk in with a radiold wife beater on and
some flip flops. Don't do that. That's not showing respect
(05:28):
for the court. But if you're a general worker who's
got you know, Chino's, and just a regular professional polo,
that's totally fine. So long this is clean.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Well, one of the things that I'm seeing there's an
evolution going on right now. When you go to a
grocery store, I'm starting to see a lot of fathers
with their kids. My dad never took me to the
grocery store, but I am so fascinated with how many
fathers are teaching their kids how to use an ATM card,
how to punch in the numbers, how to really be
interactive with buying something as simple as groceries.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
That's true because dads are pig dads are stepping up.
You know, younger generations are looking at this and going,
I didn't have enough time with my father. I want
to be a father. I want more time with my kids,
and I'm entitled to it because we're looking at as
a society that is radically changing and we need to
be ready for those changes and address them. And the
court system is a little bit behind in that. The
(06:21):
court system needs to be stepping it up, and the
best way to do that is to have dads ready,
being able to show why they're great dads and get
a judge to agree with them.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Please do not move. There's more with David Pisara coming
up next. These are very valuable things that you need
to talk into your back pocket. Dad's child Custody Action
Plan from David Pisara. What about leadership skills? I mean,
we all think that dads are automatic, you know leaders,
Oh man, they lead the household. They're good, they're good.
But you know, I'm no real good person when it
(06:52):
comes to fatherhood. I mean, I have two grandkids and
I will still never call myself great.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Well, it's an interesting thing when you talk about leadership
for fathers, because men generally know how to handle leadership,
and they know how to set boundaries, and that's one
of the biggest things they bring to parenting is setting
boundaries and being exploratory in the world. Dad's bring a
sense of enthusiasm and enjoyment to life that children really
(07:18):
need because it engages their mind. And studies have shown
that when a father is involved with a child and
is out exploring and explaining and throwing the kid up
in the air and having fun, putting a little bit
of stable risk into an environment, it allows a child
to become more adaptable. They do better in school, they
have better vocabulary, they have less problems with authority, they're
(07:41):
less likely to end up in the jail system, they're
look likely to end up with drugs and subst abuse problems.
Fathers are crucial to a child development.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, don't you think that we need to break that
chain though when it comes to purchasing your child's attention
and love, because I see that a lot too, where
somebody's out there at the movie because dad makes it fun.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Well, I do. I do agree that you know, gaz
should be not having to pay for access to their children.
But one of the problems is is when they are
having to pay for access to their kids, you know,
they're that quote unquote Disneyland dad. They only get the weekends.
They want to maximize their time. They want to maximize
the amount of memories they have. Whereas if they had
a fifty to fifty regular schedule and they had the
(08:23):
regular downtime of okay times, do your bath, okay times,
do laundry, okay time to do homework, the regular parenting time,
it would be more equal and they'd be more motivated
to do those things.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
I am a show prep whore, in other words, I've
got to show prep everything days in advance. So and
I sit here and I read about how fathers don't
get organized before they go into court. Why do we
try to wing it all the time. There's no answers
in winging it.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Well, that is certainly true statement, Particularly when it comes
to court. You've got to know what you have because
one important things when you're going into court is you
may have three hundred text messages you can't filter through
three hundred text messages and find the most important one
when you've got fifteen minutes in front of a judge
to make your case and you can't remember exactly where
(09:12):
that one text message is that you're trying to use.
That's why I tell dads you need to be able
to sort through that stuff. Have cherry pick the ones
you want to use. Be ready to use the evidence
scripts that are in the back of my book to
show how to get this piece of crucial evidence admitted
by the judge the judge can rely on it. You
need to have the script on how do you actually
(09:32):
mark an identify and exhibit how to move it into
evidence that the judge will rely upon it.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
When you've been accused of being an absent dad and
there you are in the courtroom with other dads that
are going through the same thing. Boy, that is the
most silent room on the planet.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Absolutely, because they're all facing the same problems. Because they're
all thinking they're going to go in say I'm a
great dad. The Judge's going to give them their fifty
percent custody and that's going to be enough. Every judge
I've talked to has said it's not enough. Need more
and more information from dads, because moms come in armed
for bear. Moms come in with calendars and schedules and
color coded yellow stickies all over a piece of paper,
(10:10):
ready to prove that dad's negligent and never around, and
dads aren't ready to fight that stuff to kind of lose.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah, yeah, Where can people go to find out more
about you? And why aren't you hosting a podcast expressing
these words?
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Well, they can go to Dad's lawschool dot com and
get my book and join our VIP program which teaches
dads how to prepare for court. And my podcast is
actually a development of my producers on me. He's like,
you've got to get this thing done. We've watched the
first one and now we've got a whole bunch of
other work going on.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
It requires work. I get it, But many this is
information that all men could use.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Absolutely excellent.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Please come back to the show anytime in the future.
The door is always going to be open for you. David.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Thanks, I appreciate it. Have a great day.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
You'd be brilliant. Okay, bye bye,
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