About Michael A. RoBards, LCSW
Licensed Clinical Social Worker · Louisville, Kentucky · License #3207
The short version
I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than twenty years of clinical practice in Louisville. I work with adults, couples, children and teens, and families — and I specialize in the work many practices avoid: couples on the brink, high-conflict co-parenting, court-involved family reunification, and kids caught in the middle of family conflict.
My office is on the first floor of the historic Bowman Field terminal, a 1929 Art Deco landmark an easy drive from the Highlands, Germantown, St. Matthews, and most of Louisville. Secure telehealth is available to anyone in Kentucky.
Clinical background
I hold a Master of Science in Social Work (MSSW) and am licensed as an LCSW by the Kentucky Board of Social Work (license #3207). Over two decades of practice, my work has centered on family systems — how the patterns between people, not just the struggles within them, shape a marriage, a childhood, or a divorce. That lens informs everything from individual therapy for anxiety and depression to the most contested reunification cases.
Family court work
A core part of my practice is therapy that intersects with the legal system: court-ordered and voluntary reunification therapy, high-conflict co-parenting work, and structured documentation that holds up under scrutiny. I coordinate with attorneys and Guardians ad Litem, am available for testimony when required, and have extensive experience with Jefferson County and Kentucky family courts. Attorneys and GALs refer to me because the work is structured, documented, and focused on the child's actual relationship with each parent — not on winning.
How I work
Therapy with me is practical. We identify the pattern you are caught in, get honest about each person's part in it, and rebuild connection step by step — with clear goals and real feedback along the way. I will be warm with you, and I will also tell you the truth. Most people find that combination is exactly what they could not get anywhere else.
Beyond the therapy room
I write and build under The Human Equation, use technology transparently in my practice (see AI in clinical practice), and am a second-generation clinician: my mother, Dr. Martine J. RoBards, Ph.D., spent thirty years developing the type-temperament research that lives on in The Insight System.