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Court Upholds Confidentiality of Mediation Intake Forms, Mediator’s File &...
Cliff Nelson, Riverdale Mediation & Hilary Linton, Riverdale Mediation and mediate393/311/47 Few legal principles are more sacrosanct than settlement privilege. In family law, where the legal,...
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Book Review: A Guide To Family Arbitration In Ontario, By Stephen Grant And...
Score: 9.5/10 As a family arbitrator I am always looking for good reading to stay current. I recommend this book highly for anyone doing this work. This thin (just over 100 pages of text),...
View ArticleBest Practices for Addressing Power Imbalances and Safety in Family Dispute...
Introduction With courts, for now, restricting services to all but emergency matters due to COVID-19, the demand for alternative dispute resolution services is growing exponentially. The need is...
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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...
View ArticleThe Promise of Family Mediation-Arbitration: Is it Real?
The crisis in access to family law justice has led to many great things happening outside of court. Collaborative practice, for example, has grown from disenchantment with the adversarial legal...
View ArticleIdentifying and Assessing Family Violence and Power Dynamics
What are the fundamental principles of ADR? What are some basic screening concepts I should know before starting mediation and/or arbitration? What are mediators looking for when assessing for risk?...
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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...
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Enforcement of Agreements and Orders in a Closed PC Process
Walk softly and carry a big stick is a variation on a phrase popularized by US President Theodore Roosevelt in a 1903 speech when he said to the crowd “speak softly and carry a big stick”. In other...
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A Good Case for Family Mediators: Justice Sherr in L.B. and P. E.
As family mediators, we work “in the shadow of the law”. Our job is to help parties reach agreements that are better for them than their alternatives… meaning mediators must know what a court would do...
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Co-Parenting Resources
Photo by William Fortunato from Pexels One of the most important, but often overlooked, part of the parenting coordination (PC) process is parent education and coaching. As PC is not inexpensive,...
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Ontario family mediation: World class excellence
Originally published in The Lawyer’s Daily, June 30, 2021. If Gary Joseph’s opinion is reflective of what Ontario lawyers know about family mediation practice in our province, (June 22, 2021,...
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Arbitration: Sufficiency of Reasons
Judges sometimes make reversible errors that are overturned on appeal; so too with arbitrators. It is not very often, however, that judges or arbitrators have their decisions overturned for lack of...
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Farmer v. Farmer*: Nine Easy Steps to Being a Better Arbitrator
Make sure your equipment is working. An ‘honest’ admission about equipment failure leading to defective reasons is not the kind of honesty you want to be known for. Avoid stark characterizations of...
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What does a successful Parenting Coordination client look like?
I spend a considerable amount of time each month talking to prospective clients about various dispute resolution processes. I tell them what my processes look like and what my expectations are for the...
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What does a successful Parenting Coordination client look like?
I spend a considerable amount of time each month talking to prospective clients about various dispute resolution processes. I tell them what my processes look like and what my expectations are for the...
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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...
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Family Arbitrators: Protect Your Deductible and Screen Well!
Screening is the first step in all family mediation, collaborative law and arbitration cases. The purpose of screening is to ensure that the parties and the process are a good match. There are two...
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Is it confidential? Is it binding? A recent case answers common questions...
A recent decision of Justice A. Himel of the Newmarket Superior Court of Justice is instructive for family mediators, parties seeking mediation services and their lawyers. Butler v Butler addresses the...
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What exactly is family mediation?
“What helps to resolve family cases? In examining which cases ultimately resolved, what seems most important …was how willing (the parties) were to accept the family dispute resolution paradigm and how...
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Latest Developments in Parenting Co-ordination Law
This is part one of a two-part series. It was originally published on August 29, 2022 by The Lawyers Daily. In part two, we will provide more case law regarding parenting co-ordination. By Hilary...
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