Advisors Biographies
Armin Brott
Armin speaks not only as a specialist in parenting, but as a parent himself.
Hailed by Time Magazine as "the superdad's superdad," Armin Brott has been building better fathers for more than a decade. As the author of six bestselling books on fatherhood, he's helped millions of men around the world become the fathers they want to be—and that their children need them to be.
He has written for The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, American Baby, Parenting, Child, Men's Health, The Washington Post, and dozens of other major publications and websites.
Armin has been a guest on hundreds of radio and television shows, including Today, CBS Overnight, Fox News, and Politically Incorrect, and his work on fatherhood has been featured in such places as Glamour, Time, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Newsday, and many others.
Armin is the host of "Positive Parenting," a weekly radio program which airs in the San Francisco Bay Area and a number of other markets. He also does the "DaddyCast" podcast. Armin lives with his wife and three children in Oakland, California. Learn more about Armin at: http://www.mrdad.com/
Dr. Edward Bartlett - Rockville, Maryland
Dr. Bartlett holds a Ph.D in Public Health from John Hopkins University. He is a public policy expert in the area of domestic violence and its impact on family courts and child custody litigation. He is the former head of Mens Health America, an organization concerned with issues pertaining to service delivery to underserved male populations.
Julie Batson, MBA - Atlanta, Georgia
In addition to her responsibilities as a Senior Technology Information Systems auditor with a Fortune 100 company, Julie is also President of Georgians for Child Support Reform and Georgians for Family Law Reform PAC. Ms. Batson has testifed on numerous occasions before the Georgia legislature and with the support of her 3,000 member organization was successful in 2006 in changing Georgia's Child Support Guideline model. Her experience in building non-partisan legislative coalitions is considerable.
Dr. Warren Farrell - Mill Valley, California
Dr. Warren Farrell is the author of two award winning international best sellers, "The Myth of Male Power"and "Why Men Are the Way They Are", published in over 50 countries in 8 languages. His first book, "The Liberated Man", is still selling well after 20 years. Dr, Farrell listens to both sexes, He is the only man in the U.S. to have been elected three times to the Board of Directors of the National Organization for Women (NOW) in New York City; he has also served on the boards of 3 national men's organizations. He is the only person to speak at both Governor Pete Wilson's conferences on both men and women issues in 1995.
Over a period of twenty five years, Warren has worked with more than a quarter million men and women from all walks of life. The Chicago Tribune described Farrell as, "The Gloria Steinem of Men's Liberation". Dr. Farrell has served as an educator at the School of Medicine, University of California in San Diego, as well as teaching at Georgetown University, Rutgers, Brooklyn College, American University and the California School of Professional Psychology. His range of subjects includes political science, psychology, sociology, sexual politics and public administration.
In 1965, President Johnson chose Warren as one of the nation's outstanding young educators. Warren later served as an assistant to the President of New York University and revived NYU's highest honor for his Ph.D. thesis on changing men's roles and behavior in response to women's roles.
Warren appeared on the Donahue show eight times, and numerous occasions on the Oprah Winfrey show. Additionally, he has been on ABC World News with Peter Jennings, the Today Show with Barbara Walters, 20/20, Crossfire, and Larry King Live. Warren has been featured in People and on Real People; in Time and the New York Times; on the CBS Morning News and Good Morning America, Geraldo and To Tell the Truth. He has written for publications ranging from Psychology Today to World Book Encyclopedia; from Cosmopolitan to Ms.; from Glamour to Journals of sociology and psychology. Dr. Farrell's website is http://www.warrenfarrell.com/
Dr. Gordon Finley - Miami, Florida
Dr. Finley is Professor of Psychology at Florida International University in Miami. Dr. Finley has been involved in researching family dynamics and fatherhood issues for over thirty years. Numerous professional publications have carried his work including Family Court Review, the Journal of Marriage and Family, and the Journal of Family Issues. Gordon's commentary and op-ed articles have appeared in every major paper in the nation.
Gordon is a sought after conference speaker and presenter, and is recognized as an authoritative researcher on father and family related topics.
Carol Hopkins
Carol Hopkins, and educator by profession, was selected for the 1991-92 San Diego County Grand Jury, and served as Deputy Foreman. The Grand Jury received a complaint from a local Congressman regarding possible misconduct by those investigating child abuse. This led to a year-long investigation of the entire Juvenile Dependency System. Also investigated were problematic allegations of abuse and molestation during family court custody disputes, and a number of wrongful criminal prosecutions of child abuse. Five Grand Jury Reports were issued with numerous recommendations for local reform. San Diego County adopted most of the recommendations in 1992. Other recommended reforms required changes in state and federal law over which the Grand Jury had no jurisdiction.
Since 1992 Ms. Hopkins has been active in drafting and supporting reform legislation both in Sacramento and Washington, D.C. and has provided testimony before the California State Legislature as well as before the U.S. Senate, in her capacity as a private citizen. Carol Hopkins serves on the S. D. District Attorney's Ad Hoc Committee on Child Abuse, San Diego County's Child Protection Services Task Force, and is a board member of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.
As co-founder of the Justice Committee, Carol previously served as a advocate for the falsely accused and the unjustly convicted. She has been a highly visible proponent of reform whose comments have been cited in dozens of national media stories including CBS's Eye on America, Before Your Eyes, Gordon Elliott, Inside Edition and 48 Hours, ABC's Prime Time Live, and Turning Point, NBC's The Leeza Show, and in national publications such as; Newsweek, Time, The Washington Post, New York Times, The Washington Times, LA Daily Journal, LA Times, San Diego Union-Tribune, Esquire, Gentlemen's Quarterly, National Review, Mother Jones, etc.
Carol Hopkins is the former Executive Director of the Justice Committee. The Justice Committee was formed out of a concern for abuses in the criminal justice system. These abuses have resulted in wrongful prosecutions of innocent citizens, a vast waste of community resources, and an eroding public confidence in the judicial system. A series of high profile and unjust child abuse prosecutions in San Diego led to the founding of the Justice Committee.
Dr. David Knox - Greenville, North Carolina
David is divorced dad of two, with a Ph.D. from the Inter-Divisional Doctoral Program in Marriage and Family Living at Florida State University. Dr. Knox is a marriage and family therapist and Professor of Sociology at East Carolina University. He is also the author or co-author of ten books including "Choices in Relationships" and "How to Be Your Own Family Therapist". He recently authored the book "The Divorced Dad's Survival Book".
Jeffrey Leving, Esq. - Chicago, Illinois
Mr. Leving is a Chicago matrimonial attorney who helped write the Chicago joint custody bill that has been in effect for over a decade. In addition to his legal and legislative efforts, Mr. Leving speaks on domestic relations in both print and broadcast media. Jeffery has appeared on Nightline with Ted Koppel, Talk Back Live on CNN, 20/20, AM-Philadelphia, the Montel Williams Show and the Oprah Show, as well as numerous radio shows. Mr. Leving is in continual demand as a keynote speaker and lecturer on the importance of fathers and joint custody. He is the author of the book, "Fathers Rights" by Basic Books.
Dr. Jayne Major - Los Angeles, California
Dr. Major earned her Ph.D in Philosophy of Education from UCLA. She has a long and distinguished career in the family law field serving at various times in positions as diverse as parenting educator to assistant professor of family in the California State University system. She is an authority on parental alienation and is currently producing a series of DVD's on this topic. She regularly consults with the family court and additionally serves as an expert witness.
Dr. Major is the Founder of Breakthrough Parenting Services, Inc. which works with parents and children involved in divorce and custody situations. This organization has currently provided education to over 19,000 parents in the Los Angeles area. For seventeen years Dr. Major served as Executive Director of The Parent Center, an organization she founded in 1983, providing services to high risk in-crisis familes.
For over twenty years, Dr. Major has written and published extensively on issues involving divorce, child custody, parenting and parental alienation. She is a regular columnist for Divorce Magazine.
Dr. Major began her career in the 1960's as an elementary school teacher in Germany with the Department of Defense and in the Los Angeles Unified School District prior to becoming involved in parent education and family law. For more on Dr. Major visit: http://www.breakthroughparentingservices.org/
Molly Olson, MBC - St. Paul, Minnesota
Ms. Olson holds a masters degree in business communications and has been active in family law reform for a number of years. In 2003, Molly founded a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization called the Center for Parental Responsibility (CPR). The mission of CPR is to remove the obstacles that prevent both parents from being fully and equally involved in the lives of their children. She acts as volunteer Executive Director for this 100% volunteer organization with nearly 1000 members. Molly is aware of the issues fractured families face and has committed all her spare time to reducing family conflict or saving what little is left of fractured families, in order to preserve what is best for the children. These efforts have propelled her into becoming a volunteer citizen lobbyist. She has advocated for family law reform both at the state and federal level, having provided testimony on multiple occasions to the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee. In June 2006, she began hosting a weekly cable TV show for the family law reform community, which has received national attention.
In 2005, Molly started another company called F.A.I.R. Solutions when she became a trained family mediator. She is listed with the Minnesota Supreme Court as a Rule 114 Neutral. As an expert in conflict resolution and communication through her education and L.E.T. experience, and aware of problems in fractured families through CPR, mediation became a natural extension and addition to her services. As a mediator, she assists people who desire to handle their divorce without the conflict of litigation and expense of attorneys, but rather, through cooperation and collaboration which increases the chance of an amicable divorce and ongoing communication. She also provides post-divorce mediation for parents and families who benefit from a neutral facilitator of family conflict. F.A.I.R. is an acronym for family advocate for individual responsibility.
In the business world, Ms. Olson has provided consulting services in the area of sales team development and motivation for numerous Fortune 500 companies.
Dr. Michael Nieland - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Dr. Nieland is a practicing physician in Pittsburgh. He is co-author of the book "A Family Divided" published by Prometheus Books. Dr. Nieland has raised the awareness level of the family law profession to the need for professional standards, best practices and codes of ethics among various court practitioneers whether they be custody evaluators, therapists or guardians ad litem.
Caroline Schant, MA - Greenville, North Carolina
Caroline Schacht, has a M.A. in Sociology and M.A. in Family Relations, is Instructor of Sociology at East Carolina University where she teaches Courtship and Marriage and Introduction to Sociology. Her clinical work includes marriage and family relationships. She is also a divorce mediator and the co-author of several books including Marriage and the Family: A Brief Introduction (Wadsworth, 1999).
Gladden Schrock, MFA - A playwright, actor, and novelist, Schrock was a founding member of the Long Wharf Theater, the Enchanted Hills Playhouse, and Theater Lobby. His plays have been produced at the Guthrie, Long Wharf, and other theaters, and have been published by Grove Press and the University of Minnesota Press. In 1965 he was the first Playwright-in-Residence at Yale University. He is the author of the 1973 novel, Letters from Alf, and has also published fiction in the Massachusetts Quarterly Review. He has acted widely in theater roles and in the independent film Daydream Believer. For his op-ed writing on false memory, he received the Skeptic Society's Citizen Sane Award in 2002; in 1997 he was the keynote speaker and co-moderator of National Day of Contrition Conference. For two decades, Schrock was a commercial herring fisherman in Maine. BA, Manchester College; MFA in Playwriting, Yale School of Drama. He has taught at Bennington since 1991.
Stuart A. Miller -
Stuart Miller is nationally recognized as an expert in domestic policy as it pertains to the family. He is frequently called upon to testify before Congress, state legislatures, committees and regulatory groups. In addition to drafting legislation for Virginia and Texas lawmakers, he has drafted amendments to the 1994 omnibus crime bill on family violence and has co-authored the proposed by Pepresentative Randy Forbes. Mr. Miller has engaged in top level policy development with the White House Domestic Policy Counsel, the Welfare Reform Task Force and the Administration for Children & Families Office of Child Support Enforcement. Mr. Miller also writes for the Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Playboy and is under a blanket freelance agreement with the Washington Times. He is the former host of a nationally broadcast radio show on 450 radio stations throughout the country. Mr. Miller is Senior Legislative Analyst for the American Fathers Coalition, a national coalition of 250+ fathers rights groups in the United States. AFC's primary constituency is comprised of responsible fathers who want to participate in their children's lives emotionally, physically and financially.
legal community. Over the past 20 years he has authored numerous legal briefs involving constitutional arguments relavent to family law issues in multiple state and federal forums including the United States Supreme Court.
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Howard University as a political science professor. He is internationally known for insightful commentary on the dismal state of family courts in America and the obstacles faced by fathers attempting to remain a significant part of their children's lives after divorce. Among the numerous publications in which Dr. Baskerville's articles and commentary have appeared are the Washington Post, Washington Times, Insight Magazine, Human Events, The Boston Globe, Reason, National Review, and the Journal of Political Science. Additionally, he has appeared on a number of national television shows including Fox New's O'Reilly Factor, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and Court TV. For more on Stephen Baskerville visit his website at 