Melissa Isaak’s “Anatomy of a Custody Case” Part 6: Be Precise, Yet Concise
Melissa Isaak’s “Anatomy of a Custody Case” workshop was a cornerstone of practical advice at the 2019 TFRM Convention. Isaak spoke with the clarity of a seasoned attorney and the frustration of someone who’d seen the system’s flaws up close. Like Ron and Sherry Palmer’s constitutional law workshop at the same convention, Isaak’s talk was a call to action. In this first part of our series, we dive into the mechanics of responding to custody petitions, her advice on motions, counterclaims, and the perils of ignoring court papers.
Isaak opened with a warning: “Biggest thing is, you’re served with paperwork, do not ignore the paperwork.” She explained the consequences: “If you don’t answer in the time that you’re given to answer, you can get what’s called a default judgment against you, which means that your ex, your spouse, your wife will get awarded to her most likely everything she asks for in her petition.” This, she stressed, could mean losing custody, the marital home, or facing steep child support orders. “Do not ignore these things,” she reiterated, her tone urgent.
For fathers served with a custody or support petition, she outlined immediate options. “We went over motions you can file prior to your answer if you want to contest jurisdiction or file a motion to dismiss,” she said, referring to procedural moves to challenge a court’s authority (e.g., Alabama Code § 30-3-1 requires six months’ residency). But the core response is the answer: “Along with your answer, you can file a counterclaim. So if there’s a petition for custody and support that you’re served with, you can file an answer and you can also file a counterclaim if you yourself are wanting to establish custody or some sort of custodial schedule.”
Drafting these pleadings, Isaak advised, requires precision. “When you’re drafting your pleadings, would it be your complaint or your answer, your counterclaim, you want to keep this in mind because this is what your trial will consist of when you’re in a custody case,” she said. An answer responds to the petition’s claims, admitting or denying each point. For example, she described a sample answer: “Father is over the age of 19 years, he’s been a resident citizen of Montgomery, Alabama for more than six months. If that’s true, all you have to do is paragraph one, admit.” But she cautioned against blanket admissions: “If something is admitted, you submit it. If something you don’t really admit, say partially admitted. Husband admits information related to the child born to the marriage and denies the wife as the parent who should have sole custody.”
A counterclaim, meanwhile, lets fathers state their demands. “In your counterclaim, you can lay out the same jurisdictional grounds—age, residency, things of that nature—and this is where you tell the court what you want,” Isaak said. For instance, “Here we want a shared custody situation.” She also flagged a critical detail for married fathers: “It’s important to say that the wife is not currently pregnant or, based upon the information belief of the husband, the wife isn’t currently pregnant.” Why? “If the child is born while you’re still married, even if you’re going through divorce, you are the legal father,” she explained, citing the presumption of paternity (e.g., Alabama Code § 26-17-204).
Isaak’s focus on pleadings echoed the Palmers’ convention call to proactively challenge court overreach, though her approach was procedural rather than constitutional. Where the Palmers urged motions to quash unlawful orders, Isaak emphasized answering petitions to avoid default judgments and filing counterclaims to assert custody rights. Her message was clear: act fast, be precise, and don’t let the system steamroll you.
In the next part, we’ll explore Isaak’s critique of the “best interest of the child” standard and her strategies for selecting witnesses to strengthen a custody case.
-David B
Fathers Anonymous