Program Chairs:

Adam Black, Torkin Manes LLP
Lindsay van Roosendaal, Torkin Manes LLP

Financial Statements and Disclosure Issues

• Disclosing your client’s income to his/her advantage
• Tips to complete the budget on behalf of payers v. payees
• What constitutes property? Listing values, debts and notional dispositional
• Costs
• The rules and realities of excluded property
• Assessing your opponent’s Form 13
• The inadequate or incorrect financial statement – Ethical obligations and how to deal with a client unwilling to disclose
• Dealing with unreported income – reconciling a lawyer’s obligation to the client and to the Court
• Disclosure: When is enough enough?

Brian Burke, Epstein Cole LLP
Sara Mintz, Torkin Manes LLP

The Application and Answer – Setting the Stage to Tell the Story

• Drafting the pleadings to effectively convey the issues
• Dealing with jurisdictional issues
• Affidavit in support of a claim for custody or access – Form 35.1
• When, why and how to amend pleadings
• The useful v. useless reply
• Overcoming the “respondent” disadvantage
• Naming and adding parties

Harold Niman, Niman Zemans Gelgoot LLP

Navigating the Rules at Court Conferences

• Case conferences, settlement conferences and pre-trial conferences: tips and techniques
• Obtaining court orders at a conference – procedural v. substantive orders

Navigating the Rules at Motions

• When will the court accept that your emergency motion is actually an emergency?
• Popular motions that are destined to succeed/fail
• Motions to vary interim orders – tricks of the trade
• 14B Motions – when and how to use them

Lorna Yates, Ballantyne Yates LLP

Offers to Settle

• The strategic use of offers to achieve the client’s goals
• Timing offers to settle
• Strategy for including an expiration clause in your offer to settle

Costs

• Increasing the likelihood of obtaining costs
• Partial v. substantial indemnity – how to maximize the costs order
• Preventing the costs order against your client

Bryan Smith, Bastedo Stewart Smith

Enforcing Orders

• Enforcement techniques for monetary payments
• The mystery of the Family Responsibility Office
• The challenges of enforcing custody/access orders
• The elusive motion for contempt

Georgina Carson, MacDonald & Partners LLP

Using the Family Law Rules and Rules of Professional Conduct as Tools for Advocacy

• Practising with civility – weaving together the Family Law Rules and the Rules of Professional Conduct
• Treating the Court with courtesy and respect
• Communicating with witnesses giving evidence
• Dealing with self-represented parties
• Getting off the record

The Honourable Madam Justice Susanne Goodman, Superior Court of Justice
Stephen Grant, Grant & Sadvari
Fareen Jamal, Bales Beall LLP