Author: Amy Polacko

Amy Polacko is a divorce and post-separation abuse coach and award-winning journalist who was part of the Pulitzer Prize winning team covering the TWA Flight 800 crash for Newsday. She is the co-author of “Framed: Women in the Family Court Underworld.”

Could You Be ‘Framed’? New Book Exposes How Domestic Abuse Victims Are Set Up in Family Court

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In their groundbreaking new book, Framed: Women in the Family Court Underworld, Dr. Christine M. Cocchiola and Amy Polacko expose the gender biased injustice in family courts. Through the stories of 22 real women from the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia the authors shine a light on how women are accused, arrested, abused and can even lose custody of their children—to their abusers. 

“Most people have no idea what really happens when you get divorced—until they find themselves entering the world of family court. It is an abuser’s playground,” said Polacko.

Surprised a Colorado Mom Was Jailed for Protecting Her Kids? Don’t Be.

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Rachel Pickrel-Hawkins was jailed for objecting to court ordered “reunification therapy” that sought to mend the relationship between her children and their father, a man charged with sexually assaulting three of their daughters and physically abusing their son.

As a divorce coach and coercive control expert, who are both domestic abuse survivors, we see these mind boggling, trauma-inducing decisions by family courts every day. This Colorado mom could be any mom. That’s why it’s time that America deals with our family court crisis head on.

It’s Been a Year Since Catherine Kassenoff’s Assisted Suicide. Has Anything Changed in Family Court?

After she lost custody of her three daughters in a divorce proceeding that labeled her behavior “harmful” and unhinged, Catherine Kassenoff decided to end her life in a Swiss assisted suicide facility on May 27, 2023.

“She couldn’t live without her children and the court was saying she couldn’t live with her children,” said Wayne Baker, the executor of Kassenoff’s estate, “so where did that leave her?”

Many in the family court reform movement thought the dramatic death of an astute legal mind like Catherine—who still couldn’t win in our backward system—would finally mark a watershed for reform. One year later, what has changed?

America Needs Bethenny Frankel’s Divorce Podcast

“Finally.” That’s what Emma thought when she heard Bethenny Frankel spill the beans about her epic split on her new Just B Divorced podcast. Finally, someone was validating what millions of women go through silently behind divorce court doors. The Real Housewives of New York alum has millions of fans and a multi-million dollar business empire. In the show’s first two episodes, Frankel took listeners behind the scenes of the “torture” she endured during a 10-year divorce for a two-year marriage.

But following her mother’s death, Frankel announced that she was putting the new pod on hold and the episodes disappeared.

Why the ‘Tradwife’ Life Is More Dangerous Than Ever Before

They were soulmates. At least that’s what Olivia thought—and Brad said. When they reconnected over a decade later, it seemed like fate.

Brad was charismatic. Within a couple years, Olivia was pregnant, and Brad wanted her to stay home. “He didn’t use the term ‘tradwife’ but that’s what he wanted,” she said, referring to the social media trend glorifying the traditional wife of the 1950s who tends the home and has no financial independence. “I felt like a slave. He expected me to keep the house clean while caring for our baby. … If I didn’t wear makeup and have my hair done, he would ask why. … The only thing with my name on it was a joint Costco card.”

After he cheated multiple times, they got divorced and she got no alimony. Brad lives in a comfortable home thanks to his well-paying job. Olivia lives in a trailer.

“If you refrain from building your own success, it’s very dangerous,” she said. “Being a ‘tradwife’ is like playing Russian roulette.”

‘Hysterical’ Women Out for Revenge: Family Court’s Misogynistic Tropes Traumatize Women and Children

The misogynist trope of the “hysterical woman out for revenge” is used quite effectively by coercive controlling abusers—and, as a result, some women lose custody of their children and are financially ruined.

“It’s more comfortable to accept the explanation that women are crazy, rather than that many men are violent,” said attorney Suzanne Zaccour, director of legal affairs at the National Association of Women in the Law in Ottawa.

But the tide is turning, as notable cases like Catherine Kassenoff’s emerge, highlighting institutional gender bias in family courts.

Lawyers Say Catherine Kassenoff’s Case—and Thousands of Others—Violate U.S. Constitutional Right to Due Process

During Catherine Kassenoff’s last call with her lawyer Harold Burke, she was distraught by the latest court ruling that terminated all contact with her daughters. Burke assured her they could fight the decision “just like Sylvia did” and thought he had convinced her to hang on in the battle they were waging in family court. He was wrong. 

Sylvia Lee lost custody of her children in 2012 after her husband claimed to “fear for their safety.” In 2016, the New York Court of Appeals reversed the decision.

Lawyers like Burke are taking up the fight for court reform on behalf of Catherine and other mothers, they said, because what’s happening violates federal civil rights law: Courts routinely deny women’s constitutional right to due process—a right the U.S. Supreme Court has stated includes “an opportunity to be heard”—and have lost their children because of it.

Experts Say Catherine Kassenoff’s Family Court Case Should Alarm America

Dr. Bandy Lee—who warned the country about Donald Trump—calls the family court system another threat to our democracy.

Lee had been in touch with Catherine Kassenoff, the New York mother and attorney ended her life through assisted suicide over Memorial Day Weekend because she couldn’t fight for custody of her daughters any longer. “What family courts have enabled is the ability of abusers—through the accusation that the other parent is alienating them from their children—to reverse the victim and offender,” Lee said. “It is an abuser’s dream come true to be labeled the good one and to accuse their victims of their own guilt and own crimes—and also to call the healthy person mentally ill.” 

Allan Kassenoff Resigns After Public Outcry Over Wife Catherine’s Apparent Suicide

Since news of New York attorney and mother Catherine Kassenoff’s reported assisted suicide in Switzerland, her husband’s former employer—the law firm Greenberg Traurig—has been in the hot seat. Late Sunday night, the law firm released a statement announcing Allan Kassenoff’s resignation. In her goodbye letter, Catherine singled out the firm as one of the ways her husband allegedly dominated their court case: “The more I fought to show these materials to the public and to the Courts, the more I was punished for daring to make such accusations against a rich, white man and Greenberg Traurig shareholder.”

Many of Catherine’s supporters applauded the decision, but the victory is bittersweet. “It is sad, but no one helps us while we are alive,” said Elizabeth Harding Weinstein, Catherine’s friend and a court reform advocate.