Reading Time: 5 minutes New moving rules apply to families going through a divorce or already divorced, including those with existing orders or agreements. The federal government has made some important changes to the Divorce Act. John-Paul Boyd provided an overview of the changes in his November 2019 article “Important Changes to the Law Are Coming: Mark your calendar!”. […]
HAVE YOU HEARD? | Updated Family Law Resources
Reading Time: 3 minutes Families and the Law series Did you know the Divorce Act changed on March 1st? To make sure you have access to the most up-to-date legal information, we’ve updated and refreshed our Families and the Law series. Plus, we’ve added a few new resources to round out the series. And, they’re available in French too! […]
Symposium on Children’s Participation in Justice Processes Coming to Calgary
Reading Time: 3 minutes Canada and its provinces are signatories to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, an international treaty that requires governments to recognize children’s fundamental human rights. In particular, Article 12 of the Convention says that children must be given “the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings” affecting them. Many […]
Obtaining Evidence in High Conflict Parenting Disputes, Part 4: Parenting Coordination
Reading Time: 4 minutes In Part 2 of this series, Sarah Dargatz wrote briefly about parenting coordination, one of the interventions available in family law cases before the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench. In this article, the final part of this series, I will talk about how parenting coordination is used in British Columbia. It’s a bit misleading to […]
Obtaining Evidence in High Conflict Parenting Disputes, Part 3: Views of the Child Reports and Parenting Assessments
Reading Time: 6 minutes In Part 1 of this series, Sarah Dargatz wrote about the use of children’s lawyers in high conflict family law disputes in Alberta. Sarah said that hiring a lawyer to represent a child can be an effective way to get information about the child’s views and preferences when the parents cannot agree. In Part 2, […]
New Resources at CPLEA
Reading Time: 2 minutes LawNow is pleased to announce the creation of a new Department, called New Resources at CPLEA, which will be a permanent addition to each issue. Each post will highlight new materials at CPLEA. All resources are free and available for download. We hope that this will raise awareness of the many resources that CPLEA produces […]
Obtaining Evidence in High Conflict Parenting Disputes, Part 2: Using Experts in Parenting Disputes
Reading Time: 5 minutes In most disputes over parenting time, parents come to reasonable decisions about what is in their child’s best interests. However, a small percentage of disputes are “high conflict”. In high conflict cases, the parents have great difficulty communicating, make decisions together, and treating each other with respect. Each parent may advocate for very different schedules. […]
Obtaining Evidence in High Conflict Parenting Disputes, Part 1: Lawyers for Children
Reading Time: 5 minutes In most disputes over parenting time, parents come to reasonable decisions about what is in their child’s best interests. However, a small percentage of disputes are “high conflict”. In high conflict cases, the parents have great difficulty communicating, make decisions together, and treating each other with respect. Each parent will advocate for very different schedules. […]
Changes to Child Support Applications
Reading Time: 4 minutes Exchanging financial information is crucial to determine child support. John-Paul Boyd gave a great overview of child support in LawNow Issues 38-4 and 38-5. I covered the general duty to disclose financial information in family law cases in LawNow Issue 39-5. There have been some recent changes in Alberta Family Courts that emphasize the need […]
Dealing with Pets after Separation, Part 2: Going to Court
Reading Time: 8 minutes In the first half of this article, I wrote about the laws on personal property that might apply when a couple can’t agree on how they’ll manage their pets after they separate. In this half, I’ll talk about the sorts of orders you can and can’t ask the court to make about pets, assuming you […]
