How has DAC shaped dependency courts in California?

I became a dependency lawyer the day after Christmas in 2001. I was working at another organization then, part of a small group of attorneys who cared deeply about this work and believed it could be better for families, for practitioners, and for the community.

After six or seven years, that organization chose not to renew its contract with the state. Four of us, who had been working closely together and knew the system in Santa Clara County inside and out, decided to bid for it ourselves. We formed a nonprofit, submitted a proposal, and won. That was the beginning of DAC.

I had never worked harder than in those first months. We put in full days at our jobs, then gathered in the evenings and on weekends, sometimes eight or ten hours at a time, building an organization from the ground up. It was exhausting and exhilarating. We poured ourselves into it because we knew what our clients deserved, and we knew what was possible if we built the right structure around them.

Now, more than 18 years later, it’s clear how much has changed because DAC exists.

Mentor Parents are recognized as experts whose insight shapes policy, training, and practice. People who once felt invisible and judged are now leading conversations that influence classrooms, courtrooms, and legislation. And it’s because of the challenges they’ve overcome, their lived experience, that people are listening.

The way we use experts in the courtroom is different. The way we challenge assumptions about indigent parents is different. We no longer accept the idea that parent defense should be bare-minimum or that families in crisis don’t deserve the strongest possible advocacy. DAC was part of a shift toward naming racial disproportionality, calling out injustice, and refusing to budge on our values and commitment to offering zealous advocacy to parents.

As I prepare for my own transition out of DAC at the end of this year, I find myself thinking back to those early days and forward to what comes next. My hope is simple: that DAC continues to grow without being held in the hands of its founders. That the organization becomes even stronger, even more visible nationally, and even more grounded in the values that brought us here.

There is still infrastructure to build and funding we must secure. There will be hard moments ahead, as there always are in transition. But my deepest hope is that DAC never loses the heart it started with- the scrappy, determined belief that families deserve better and that we can change the system one case at a time.

Thank you for being part of this work and for helping DAC continue to evolve without losing what matters most.

With gratitude, Preeti Mishra, Chief Operating Officer, Co-Founder Dependency Advocacy Center

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