Leslie M. Drozd, Ph.D.

Dr. Leslie Drozd is a licensed psychologist. She is a clinician, a forensic expert, a professor, an author, a researcher, and an editor of an international journal, the Journal of Child Custody. She has an independent practice in Newport Beach, California. She has conducted child custody evaluations for over 20 years. She works daily doing forensic work (including expert witness testimony, mainly in Family Law Court), seeing patients, teaching other professionals, or writing. She conducts post divorce work with families including reunification therapy when a child has rejected a parent. She works as a parenting coordinator and as a co-parenting therapist and she reviews the work of other colleagues and serves as a consultant to attorneys.

Dr. Drozd is a well-known expert on family violence, abuse, and alienation - especially in high conflict divorce cases. She has spoken for the Association of Family Conciliation Courts (international, national, and state conferences) as well as at conventions held by the American, California, Arizona, Minnesota, Missouri, Orange, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Luis Obispo Psychological Associations, Alliant University and California School of Professional Psychology, Argosy University, University of California, Irvine, and Harvard University doctoral program in the School of Public Health. She is the co-author of a bench book for judges in how to deal with domestic violence in child custody cases. She has served on a joint task force and she has spoken at a national convention of the American Bar Association and the American Psychological Association on issues of alleged abuse, neglect, & endangerment, and she helped create the new Model Standards for Conducting Child Custody Evaluations for the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts.

FROM THE COVER: When conducting parenting plan evaluations, mental health professionals must be aware of a myriad of deent factors. More so than in any other form of forensic evaluation, they must have an understanding of the most current findings in developmental research, behavioral psychology, attachment theory and legal issues to substantiate their opinions.In Parenting Plan Evaluations, Therapists and lecturers Kathryn Kuehnle and Leslie Drozd present experts who pull the research together and suggest ways to implement findings.