Family and Divorce Lawyers in Ottawa

Under the Family Law Rules, when applying for an uncontested divorce, you have the option of starting the Application and then serving it on the responding party, or else cooperating with your spouse and filing the Application, jointly, as co-applicants. The primary benefit of a joint application is that it doesn’t need to be filed…

According to the Court of Appeal in Gray v. Rizzi, the answer to the above question is ‘no’. In this case, a final order from 2005 awarded significant child and spousal support to the wife even though the husband, who was self-employed, had never made proper financial disclosure to the wife. Had he made the…

In 2015, a Toronto lawyer launched a private case management service for family law cases. Why would a litigant in family law consider such a service when there is already a version of case management in the court system? When parties are involved in court proceedings in Ontario, the process will include access to either…

A recent Ottawa case is a reminder that the threshold for establishing the need for an urgent motion prior to a case conference is a very high one. Absent urgency or an emergency, parties are expected to attend a case conference prior to bringing a motion. What qualifies as urgency is based on a two…

Most couples who are separating have various debts in joint names- the mortgage, a secured or unsecured line of credit, and credit cards. Ideally, once you’ve separated, you want to separate your finances as soon as possible. Especially joint debts, because you can’t control if and when your spouse will decide to draw down the…

In a recent family court case in Ontario, the Toronto police brought a motion to remove the police access provisions contained in a custody and access order. This motion was filed only 6 days after the original order (on consent) was made. Unless you have a clause in an order or an agreement requiring police…