Dear members-

2025 is going very well.

The 2026 Sacramento Conference is now in our sights: Practical Solutions for Complex Family Law Challenges. It will be held at the Doubletree by Hilton Sacramento February 6-8, 2026. You should have received the Call for Presenters https://www.afcc-ca.org/conference/2026-conference-call-for-presenters-std/.  We encourage you to submit a proposal for a workshop or institute. Deadline is July 18, 2025.

The AFCC International Conference is being held in New Orleans May 28-31, 2025. https://www.afccnet.org/62ndannualconference/.

Also for your calendar: The 2025 Conference on Advanced Issues in Child Custody: Evaluation, Litigation, and Settlement will be in San Francisco, September 18-20, 2025 in San Francisco. https://www.afccnet.org/2025afccaaml.

The board had a retreat last month, the first in many, many years, and it was very productive:

  • We worked up a set of expectations for new board members going forward.
  • We decided the California Chapter should have a California-specific logo. Most of the AFCC state chapters simply use AFCC International’s logo. In fact, that’s what California has done. But a couple chapters have state-specific logos that necessarily include the AFCC International logo but include something that alludes to that specific Chapter (e.g., Arizona has a cactus, New York has the Statue of Liberty). In the coming weeks, we will be sending to the general membership the rules for the logo contest. Our goal is to have a new logo adopted prior to the 2026 conference registration in Fall 2025. Watch out for the contest details!
  • We updated the list of the current committees and the committee members which will be reflected on the website soon. We added a Fundraising Committee which will focus on conference sponsors as well as fundraising opportunities the rest of the year. We added a Continuing Education Committee to make sure that the requirements for continuing education credits are met, both before a conference or webinar and after. We have a new Social Media/Newsletter Committee. Finally, we recognized the need for a Technology Committee which has replaced the Website Committee. Should you wish to serve on any of the committees, please get in touch with Peggy Holbrook at exec.dir@afcc-ca.org.
  • The board decided to ramp up our social media posting via LinkedIn. LinkedIn will be used to advertise our events and serve as a resource for proposed legislation, cases and articles that relate to custody issues.
  • The retreat included a guided discussion by Tirien Steinbach about how we as an organization can further our mission, values and goals.
  • In line with that, we came up with a sixth California-specific value consistent with AFCC International’s vision and values: “Improving access to justice for California’s diverse community.” We discussed different ways we can do this including volunteerism and pro bono and low bono work. We discussed AFCC California underscoring the new rules from the State Bar about pro bono work and supporting volunteer opportunities including having sign-up sheets at the conferences. There was discussion of a presentation dedicated to ways professionals in the family court system can volunteer.
  • We also discussed expanding AFCC California’s reach to include parents, teens, teachers, houses of worship, etc.

Our Bylaws Committee is working on amendments which we expect to put before you by the end of the year with any adoption to occur at the next general membership meeting, in February 2026.

We are also looking into ways to make the chapter’s website more user friendly.

Speaking of the website, as many of you know, we now have on our website a list of child custody evaluators as well as a list of mentors. We will soon be adding lists of parenting coordinators, custody mediators, and court involved therapists. Please use these resources and let others know about them. If you would like to be added to the list, please get in touch with Peggy Holbrook.

It remains a central goal to grow our membership. I encourage all of you to talk to colleagues about what membership in the California Chapter can do for them.

Our webinars have been on hiatus, but we expect those to be rolling out starting this summer. I encourage you to submit a proposal. Send proposals for webinars to Merlyn Hernandez at mnhlaw@sbcglobal.net.

Finally, I want to pick up on a theme I raised at the 2025 Conference. I find it deeply discouraging that the term “diversity” has become so polarized. Diversity is not the opposite of unity nor the opposite of merit. Diversity means more and different voices with different perspectives and experiences and backgrounds. When you have more voices and more perspectives at the table, it is demonstrably true that there will be better results. In truth, diversity should be a goal for all organizations. It has been and will continue to be the goal of AFCC California. We as an organization have been intentional in working towards a more diverse organization.  Over the past several years, we have diversified our board, we have broadened the topics of our conference, and we have sought a greater variety of speakers. Our organization is stronger when we have more buy in, and the only way we get more buy in is to have as many stakeholders represented.

I invite you all to engage in dialogue about what AFCC California is trying to do. Again, consider proposing a presentation for the 2026 conference or proposing a webinar or joining a committee.

Have a great summer!

Dave Blacker
President, AFCC California

David Blacker is a California State Bar Certified Family Law Specialist. He handles high asset cases and complex issues of paternity, custody, and business valuation. Prior to becoming a lawyer, Dave was a professional trombonist playing in local salsa, funk and jazz groups. Dave has served on the board of the California Chapter of the Association of the Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) since 2016 and served as Conference Co-Chair for the chapter’s 2020 and 2022 annual conferences. Dave is also the President and Co-Founder of the Center for Separating and Divorcing Families (anticipated opening 2020), which will provide an out of court process to handle, under one roof and for a fixed fee, the legal, emotional and financial needs of families in transition with the goal of minimizing the fallout from family law disputes. Dave also has served as a Settlement Master in San Francisco Superior Court, taught family law courses, and coached high school mock trial students. Dave is the parent of two high schoolers, both proud native San Franciscans. He continues to nurture his artistic spirit by cooking and playing music. He brings both his parenting experience and his creative outlook to his law practice.