This column is coming out during the COVID-19 pandemic. Health authorities across Canada, and the world, have issued protocols for limiting the spread of the virus. Many family courts are only hearing “urgent” matters. The court has heard cases during this time that speak to a specific set of circumstances in our history. However, the […]
FAMILY | The Legal Status of the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines
March 3, 2020 By Sarah Dargatz
The Divorce Act sets out the factors that a judge considers when ordering one ex-partner to pay spousal support (also knows as “partner support” or “spousal maintenance”) to the other ex-partner. The factors in provincial family law legislation that applies to unmarried couples, such as Alberta’s Family Law Act, often mirror the Divorce Act. Before […]
FAMILY | DBS v SRG: Retroactive child support claims
January 7, 2020 By John-Paul Boyd
20/20: Looking back over the last 20 years I was not short of choices when LawNow asked me to write about one of the most important family law cases in the last twenty years. After consulting with Sarah Dargatz, my fellow columnist on family law issues, I decided to talk about DBS v SRG, a […]
Alternatives to Court: Parenting Coordination
July 4, 2019 By John-Paul Boyd
This is the last column in LawNow’s series on resolving family law disputes out of court. The other columns in this series include Sarah Dargatz’s articles on collaborative negotiation and mediation, and my article on arbitration. In this column, I’m going to talk about parenting coordination. This is a child-centred process that combines elements of […]
Alternatives to Court: Mediation
May 3, 2019 By Sarah Dargatz
In the first column in this series, John-Paul Boyd introduced basic alternatives to resolving family law disputes in court. In the second column, I wrote about the Collaborative process. In the last issue, John-Paul Boyd explained arbitration. In this column, I’m going to talk about mediation. Mediation is a process where you and the other […]
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