When families separate, ensuring that child and spousal support obligations are met is critical for the financial stability and well-being of those involved—especially children. One of the legal tools available in Canada to assist with the enforcement and establishment of support orders is the Family Orders and Agreements Enforcement Assistance Act (FOAEAA). In this blog post, we break down what the …
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Category Archives: Separation & Divorce
Understanding the FOAEAA: A Tool for Enforcing Support in Family Law
Tips for Family Lawyers Negotiating Parenting Co-ordination Clauses
This is part one of a two-part series, originally published in The Lawyer’s Daily on October 18, 2022. By Hilary Linton and Lindsay Kertland. It is common these days for lawyers to recommend to their clients, when negotiating parenting plans, that they agree to retain a parenting co-ordinator (PC) to help resolve future disputes. We have found that in some …
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Conduct Unbecoming
In a recent case, a judge of the Superior Court of Justice outlined certain behaviour of a respondent-husband that had a real impact on costs. I will concentrate on the behaviour because, during my years on the bench, I was always surprised by lawyers and their parties who were oblivious to the impact their conduct, both prior to and during …
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CBC Promotes Family Mediation!
Listening to the CBC’s recent program on family law (Ontario Morning, March 12), it became clear to me that separating parents do not always understand their dispute resolution options. Recent changes to the federal and provincial laws require all separating couples to consider trying out-of-court settlement, and many are doing just that. But it can be wildly confusing trying to …
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Do No Harm: Should I Move Fast or Slow?
Whether you have left an unhappy situation, or are heartbroken about being left by someone you love or need—anxiety around the prospect staying connected to your separated spouse is visceral. For children, the frustration and despair is multiplied. Children have no control over the decisions of their parents, the spread of the coronavirus, nor the conditions in which they find …
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What is “Custody”? And Why Do Mediators Need to Know?
This week we are teaching our 30-hour course in Family Law for Family Mediators, Parenting Coordinators and Arbitrators. It is a comprehensive overview and is good training for anyone who wants to know more about family law. We start the course discussing what comes first; changes in law or changes in society? For example, there is a social and political …
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UK Parenting Coordination (PC)
Roadshows
It was back in 2016 that London England based Family Law in Partnership (FLiP) founder Gillian Bishop first joined us in Toronto for the Riverdale Mediation PC trainings. She and fellow FLiP colleague Felicity Shedden had recognized the benefits that PC can provide to high conflict separated co-parents, and held the belief that while PC was foreign to the UK, …
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Family Arbitration: Exploring Your Options in Dispute Resolution
Family arbitration is a very different process from mediation, and yet they are often confused. Arbitration is a process whereby the parties present their version of the story before a privately-retained arbitrator, often a senior family lawyer, who hears the evidence, applies the law and makes a binding decision. Family arbitration is therefore, more like court than it is like …
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