Steine v. Steine stands for "incomplete agreements"

A recent decision, Steine v. Steine, decided by Superior Court Justice Gregory Mulligan, stresses some of the pitfalls of "settling a case on the courtroom steps". In this particular case, the litigants and their lawyers attended a case conference (a meeting with a judge before a formal court appearance) to discuss the merits of their respective positions. The lawyers and clients negotiated for 6.5 hours and managed to settle all issues in the case. Minutes were drafted up but because a photocopier was not available in the courthouse at that time, one lawyer promised to provide a copy of the minutes to the other lawyer. Unfortunately, this never happened and slowly, the deal reached began to unravel. One of the problems in this case was that the lawyers had not fully teased out all of the specific terms of the negotiation when the minutes were drafted -- probably because it was late in the day and everyone had been negotiating for 6.5 hours. As a result, when it came time to formalize these minutes at a later date, the lawyers could not agree on some very specific terms (that they thought had already been agreed to).

The reason I highlight this case is because it is very typical in court cases for the parties to settle their case on the courtroom steps. However, these agreements are often rushed through, not comprehensive, and not forward thinking. The parties don't have an opportunity to "try on a pair of shoes and walk around in them". They need to make a final decision immediately. And, then, they are sometimes not happy with the results because they didn't think through all of the repercussions. So...I must stress that this is a peril of seeking resolution through the court system.

Read the Law Times article here: http://www.lawtimesnews.com/201010047654/Commentary/Family-Law-Steine-case-shows-pitfalls-of-incomplete-agreements

Ontario Chief Justice Warren Winkler proposes compulsory mediation before court

A few weeks ago, Justice Winkler, in his speech at the Opening of the Courts here in Toronto proposed that mediation should be compulsory before couples can gain access to the court system. Although I think that there are some difficulties with making mediation compulsory in all court cases, I do believe that this is a step in the right direction.

And, quite recently, a collaborative team of individuals from the Ontario Bar Association, the ADR Institute and the Ontario Association for Family Mediation have made recommendations to Attorney General Chris Bentley urging for measures to be taken to make court the alternative, not the default point. The Law Times writes, "The authors want the province to train specialized case assessment co-ordinators to steer as many families as possible away from the courts and thereby leave judges free to deal with the most difficult matters. In those instances where litigation is the only option, they want greater judicial continuity, with specialized family court judges seeing each case through the system from start to finish."

So, definitely, we are seeing a continuing shift to alternative dispute resolution in this province. In speaking with some of my family litigation colleagues, I get the sense of how disheartened they are with the current system.

See the article from the Law Times here: http://www.lawtimesnews.com/201010047657/Headline-News/Make-court-the-alternative-report-urges

Helpful video by the Ontario Collaborative Law Federation

If you are interested in resolving your separation issues through Collaborative Practice, have a look at this very well done video by the Ontario Collaborative Law Federation. The video gives you a taste of what a collaborative case would look like: http://www.oclf.ca/OCLF-CPVideoPublicFast.htm