Anne P. Mitchell: Spotting a False Allegation Before It Lands

Anne P. Mitchell coined the term "co-parenting." Decades before that, she was one of the first two attorneys in the country to argue that children have a right to an ongoing relationship with their father after a separation, work she started before she even went to law school.

Anne is an attorney, law professor, law dean emeritus, and legal journalist. She's the author of They're Your Kids Too, a guide for parents navigating a broken family law system, and she co-developed one of the earliest models of co-parent counseling with therapist Carol Marx. She's still licensed in California and continues to write and advocate through her Substack and her YouTube show, Fathers Are Parents Too.

In this conversation, Anne walks through the pattern she learned to recognize in her own practice: a parent losing control of custody starts escalating, and a false allegation of abuse is often what she calls the "nuclear option." She lays out the concrete steps she told her clients to take before an allegation could land, and the case that pushed her to co-develop co-parent counseling, including the "cut the cake" method for getting a resistant ex to agree to a therapist. She also names what she calls the "silver bullet" strategy, where a parent files a restraining order early specifically to gain a custody advantage, and why she considers it as dangerous today as it was decades ago.

Lisa and Anne also get into what to do when your own lawyer doesn't have experience with alienation or false-allegation cases, and how to push for a second opinion or a new attorney without damaging that relationship.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Where the term "co-parenting" actually came from, and why the framing matters for your case
• The real driver behind most high-conflict acrimony, and how to recognize it escalating
• Early warning signs that a false allegation of abuse may be coming
• Concrete steps to protect yourself before an allegation ever gets filed
• What co-parent counseling is, what it isn't, and why it works when little else does
• The "cut the cake" method for getting a resistant ex to agree to counseling
• Why proving a false allegation can flip custody in some states
• The danger of the "silver bullet" restraining-order strategy being pitched online

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Intro
4:00 One of the first US attorneys to take up fathers' and children's rights
7:00 The case she could have won, and why she didn't
10:00 From "visitation" to two parents in two homes
13:00 False allegations, and what she told clients to do about them
19:00 Supervised time as a control tactic, and documenting everything
22:00 Restraining orders filed for custody leverage
25:00 What co-parent counseling is, and when courts order it
31:00 Pre-divorce counseling, and building a schedule around the real family
37:00 A case in progress: reunification therapy with teenagers
40:00 Finding a counselor, and how to coach your own attorney

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.