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| Sarah Boulby |
What is the problem?
Family law is a challenging area. There are issues of high importance that impact a wide section of the public and involve great legal and practical complexity. Legal Aid Ontario resources are limited. Man Ontarians have an income over the legal aid threshold but struggle to afford a lawyer. There are many Ontarians at all income levels who do not wish to have a lawyer, whether or not they can afford it. They want to take care of their family disputes on their own. Either way, self-represented litigants struggle to cope with our complex family law system.
What are we doing about this problem already?
The family law bar, the courts and the provincial government have already made great strides in addressing access to justice concerns. Many initiatives have started in the last few years with some as recent as the last month. Some examples are:
1. Joint and uncontested divorces are now available online. The process is simple and accessible. No one needs a lawyer to do this for them.
2. Calculation and recalculation of child support in simple cases is now available online as an enforceable administrative process through a government of Ontario website. No one needs a lawyer to do this for them.
3. A free basic child and spousal support calculator is available online and accessible through government websites.
4. When an application for financial claims starts automatic orders for financial disclosure are granted. These save wasted time and effort in bringing motions for basic financial productions.
5. The Family Responsibility Office collects and enforces support orders at no cost to the support recipients.
6. Our family courts provide access to free mediation services.
7. Unified Family Courts are being expanded across the province with a plan to have them in every jurisdiction by 2025. Unified Family Courts mean specialized judges who are best placed to help self-represented parties. These courts have information centres and mediation services. They make a difference.
8. The Family Law Limited Scope Services Project hosts a provincewide website of family lawyers willing to provide limited scope retainers, legal coaching and summary legal counsel.
9. Advice and Settlement Counsel Toronto provides lawyers to assist self-represented litigants by speaking to motions and case conferences and providing summary advice and coaching in the Superior Court of Justice.
10. Articling students and LPP students now have rights of audience in family courts at a lower cost than lawyers but under lawyers’ supervision.
11. Binding Judicial Dispute Resolution to streamline simple family law cases is now in a pilot project in the Superior Court of Justice.
12. The Family Justice Centre provides pro bono services in family law.
What more can we do?
There is a lot more that we can do. Many of these initiatives are at the pilot stage. They need to be supported, funded where necessary and promoted. We need to finish the job on expanding the Unified Family Courts. Toronto is the biggest jurisdiction in Ontario. We still do not have a Unified Family Court (UFC) because we do not have a building. There is a new courthouse under construction which was originally intended to house the UFC for Toronto. It is not too late for the Toronto UFC to be established in that courthouse when it opens next year. Finally, we can and should consider implementing law reforms to simplify family law. There is no reason for our system to be so complicated, so slow and consequently so expensive.
So, my call to action is for the LSO to turn its attention away from trying to create a new licence for family law paralegals at great expense and risk to the public and for the LSO to focus rather on the real problems and real solutions to access to justice for families in Ontario.
Sarah Boulby, a partner at Boulby Weinberg LLP, has practised family law since 1993. She also serves as a director of the Toronto Lawyers Association (TLA) and the chair of the Family and Estates Committee of the TLA.
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