Greg Ellis - The Respondent: Exposing the Cartel of Family Law

PRAISE FOR
THE RESPONDENT

"The Respondent is a heartrending book that speaks to all of us who believe that the gold standard of family life is for every child to be with his or her biological father and mother under one roof.

Erin Pizzey , founder of the worlds first domestic-violence shelters

More than a 1,000 brokenhearted dads have detailed to me the nightmare of losing their children. None, however, has haunted my psyche more than Greg Elliss The Respondent.

Warren Farrell, PHD, author of The Boy Crisis

"The Respondent is not just informative and cautionaryit is also redemptive. Greg Elliss harrowing personal account instills tremendous empathy for the countless lives destroyed by powerful legal structures that exist to serve only themselves.

Peter Boghossian, PHD, author of How to Have Impossible Conversations

Greg Ellis leaves readers looking forward. And what comes next is life. The Respondent will likely save livesnot just the bodies of men, but their spirit to survive.

MELANIE NOTKIN, entrepreneur and author

The Respondent:

Exposing the Cartel of Family Law

by Greg Ellis

Copyright 2021 Greg Ellis

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the author.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event that you use any of the information in this book for yourself, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ellis, Greg.

The Respondent / Greg Ellis

ISBN 978-1-64663-482-8

Downloadable via Kindle, iBooks and Nook.

1. Memoir 2. BiographyFamily LawUnited States of America with int. Distribution.

Editing by Todd Lander, Esq.

Proofreading by Rachel Begley

Cover Design by Davis Bauman

www.therespondent.com

For my sons, Charlie & Smith.

Everything happens for a reason... we make up afterwards.

DEDICATION

The Respondent is both a chilling reminder and essential therapy for anyone navigating the recrimination and trauma that is modern American divorce. It is also both diagnosis and prescription, meditating on the depths of the crisis and the way out.

Greg Ellis sets the record straight and shatters the myths of divorce court. If youre trapped in the dungeon that is the family court system, The Respondent should be your constant companion.

J ohnny Depp

FOREWORD

A friend of mine recently announced to our small group of friends that he is getting divorced. He had murmured, over the past several years, that he and his wife had been, essentially, living separate lives for some time. I had viewed his marriage with more than a little doubt. However, as is so often the case, when the moment arrived, there was general dismay , even sadness. My friend had meditated a good deal about the positive consequences of leaving his marriage. The day his wife told him, and for a while after, he vacillated between joy and grief.

No normal, healthy human being goes into a marriage fixating on its failure. In my own case, even while I knew my life would improve once extricated from my first marriage, when the endgame began, I felt defeated and overwhelmingly reflective. Divorce is the death of a union, a family, a living thing.

In the ensuing years, as I was dragged through the suffering and humiliation of the California family law system (an entity that I came to equate with a criminal organization, defined by their casual willingness to inflict pain in order to extort money), I became outraged by what I was put through. So much so that I wrote a book about the experience.

Nearly every individual who enters into a contentious custody battle is unprepared for the attendant bitterness and acrimony, the lions share of which is exacerbated or manufactured by lawyers. Theres little money in a swift, collaborative divorce. And divorce lawyers, as well as the judges who serve their interests, know full well that most parents will do what is necessary to protect their relationship with their children. And they will also spend whatever is necessary, within their means, to navigate this corrupt system.

Reports from the front lines of custody battles are ubiquitous. That does not lessen their significance nor their value in the lives of someone you know who may, one day, find themselves in need of the guidance such tellings provide.

It is in this spirit that I encourage you to read Greg Elliss book, The Respondent, a fresh and updated take from an American divorce court, where some things have changed (now men are seekingand in some instances even gainingsole custody of their children, either justifiably or as the result of the malignant parental alienation that plagued them for so long) and some things are, unconscionably, the same.

Divorce court, divorce mediation, custody evaluations, forensic accountings... its all a foreign land to most people and one where you can easily lose your sanity coming to terms with the senseless rules that govern there, rules that will potentially affect the rest of your life.

You will need help. This book is it.

Alec Baldwin

PRELUDE

Fate is fickle.

A simple, three-word cliche that describes the fragility of our lives and the speed with which everything we think is real can become an illusion. Before March 5, 2015, this simple truth was little more than a philosophical abstraction for me. I appreciated its implications. But Id never experienced it, never endured a dramatic and unforeseen shift in fortune that I could not navigateuntil that fateful day six years ago.

One moment I was a successful actor and producer living in an expansive Hollywood home with my wife of twenty years and two young sons I adored. But everything changed with a knock on the door by police, the first engagement in a battle with Americas unscrupulous and unstoppable family law cartel that has raged on for years and left me with scars, my family in ashes, and my boys without a father.