Practice Areas
Guiding You Through Life’s Transitions. Protecting What Matters Most.
Creating a parenting plan after separation ensures your child’s best interests remain the top priority. We help parents navigate complex issues, including shared parenting schedules, decision-making authority, and cases involving allegations of parental wrongdoing or children with special needs. Our goal is to build stable, workable parenting solutions tailored to your family.
Determining child and spousal support requires careful consideration of income, family needs, and future stability. We assist in calculating fair support amounts, planning for special expenses, and enforcing payment obligations through the Family Responsibility Office. For spousal support, we help assess entitlement, duration, and the best payment structure for both parties.
Dividing property during separation involves emotional and financial complexity, especially when dealing with homes, cottages, farms, or family businesses. We guide you through legal entitlements, valuation, and negotiations to achieve fair division and lasting resolution. Our team works with financial experts to protect your interests and finalize equitable settlements.
If negotiation fails or is not an option, family court may be necessary to protect your rights and secure a fair outcome. We have appeared at all levels of court, advocating strongly for clients. We never go to court lightly and we always go with a plan for advancing your interests and resolving the file as quickly as possible.
Cohabitation and marriage contracts are essential when you bring property, financial obligations, or children from a previous relationship into a new one. These binding agreements protect assets, clarify expectations, and reduce the possibility of disputes in the event of separation.
Separation can significantly impact your retirement plans. We provide clear guidance on how to value and divide assets such as pensions, RRSPs and non-registered investments. We can also help you explore alternatives to pension sharing and adapt your retirement strategy to account for the life changes that separation brings.
In mediation a neutral third party helps separating couples resolve family law issues. We can act as your mediator or represent you during mediation, ensuring your rights and interests are clearly understood and protected.
In Collaborative Family Law, separated couples sign an agreement to avoid court, negotiate in good faith and work with a team of trained professionals to reach resolution of their family law issues. This team-based process promotes open communication and interest-based settlements.
Arbitration is a private, efficient alternative to court where a neutral third party makes binding decisions on family law disputes. Ideal for complex or sensitive matters, arbitration offers confidentiality and faster resolution. We help select the right arbitrator and present your case clearly and persuasively.
Not Sure Where to Start?
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens at a first consultation?
One of the most stressful parts of separating is the lack of knowledge about how separation works. Clients often attend the first consultation anxious, scared and with many questions about parenting, support, their homes, pensions and businesses. The goal of the first consultation is to help you understand:
- the key issues that relate to your separation;
- the information that you’ll need to address those issues;
- the best process to reach a settlement on your file; and
- the people who will help guide you through the process.
You should leave the consultation feeling more empowered and feeling that you have a plan to handle your separation.
What is the "Date of Separation"?
For the purposes of calculating property division and the one year that you must be separated before seeking a divorce order, “separation” is the date on which you and your spouse separated “without any prospect of reconciliation.” This can happen in a number of ways. Separation could be the date on which the spouses have “the talk” and agree that they are going to separate (even though they continue to live under the same roof for some time after that). It could also be the date on which separation happens due to one spouse having to leave the home for some reason, such as being charged criminally or being committed to a health or long-term care facility. Or it could be the date on which one spouse moves out of a shared residence.
The date of separation may affect spousal support as well, since one of the many factors in support analysis is the length of the relationship.
Given the importance of the date of separation, it’s recommended that you carefully review the circumstances of your relationship’s end with a lawyer before committing to a date.
My spouse and I agree on most issues in our separation. Can we use the same lawyer?
No. It is never recommended that separating spouses use the same lawyer. Each spouse should have independent legal advice (“ILA”) before negotiating and signing a separation agreement.
A lawyer can act as a mediator for a separated couple and help them to reach agreement on the terms of a formal separation agreement. However, the couple should then each get ILA before the formal agreement is finalized and signed.
What is a “retainer fee”?
A retainer fee is an amount of money provided to a lawyer up front, which lawyers may draw upon to pay their fees as they provide services on a file. When a retainer runs low, the lawyer may ask for it to be replenished by the client.
How much will this cost and how long will this take?
It’s hard to estimate this beyond a very high level. Think of it on a spectrum going from the faster/lower cost to the slower/higher cost side. Where your case is on the spectrum depends on the level of conflict, communication and transparency/trust.
So, if you and your ex agree in principle on many issues, are good communicators and are both being transparent and diligent in exchanging information, your case should resolve faster and at a lower cost. If conflict is high, communication poor and transparency low, it will take longer and be more expensive. We’ve seen some cases resolve within weeks and others take years.
Good planning is key to keeping your case on the faster/low cost side of the range. If your case starts on the slower/high-cost side of the range, with some good legal strategy, it doesn’t have to stay there.
