Of One’s Own Free Will: A Primer on the Succession Law Reform Act
Not long ago, I saw firsthand a situation that will be familiar to anyone who practises in estates. A grandmother,...
Judicial Oversight Reimagined: From Passive Arbiter to Active Case Manager
Ontario’s Civil Rules Review Final Policy Report[1] is, at its core, a recalibration of judicial authority. It does...
Special Considerations in…Boating Accidents
The O’Leary Collision and the Civil Aftermath Serious recreational boating accidents rarely stay confined to the...
REVIEW: Chapter 9: Conducting an Effective Examination in Chief
There is a moment in every trial when the courtroom stops being a place where lawyers talk and becomes a place where...
BLOG SERIES (Part 4): A New Architecture: The Trial Track
The Trial Track: Discipline Without Illusion The Trial Track is where the Working Group in its Final Policy Report[1]...
Hidden Ripple: The Consequences of Civil Delay
The Migration of Financial Pressure In a recent exchange with counsel, a simple observation crystallized something...
Bubble in the Middle: A Mediator’s Toughest Files
For most of my career, civil litigation followed a fairly predictable pattern. Smaller cases moved through the system...
Estate Litigation Enters the Risk-Management Arena: A Mediator’s Take
Two Practice Streams, One Set of Pressures Over the past couple years, my mediation practice has increasingly...
The Price of Care: Funding Attendant Support After Serious Injury
Attendant care is one of the most consequential, and most contested, components of serious personal injury claims in...
BLOG SERIES (Part 2): A New Architecture: The Application Track
From Procedural Afterthought to Case-Defining Engine Under the Working Group’s proposed framework, Section L titled...
BLOG SERIES: A New Architecture: Civil Rules Reform Procedural Framework for All Matters
Introduction For more than a generation, Ontario’s civil justice system has been evolving in ways that have gradually...
Caught in the Middle: Priority Disputes in Accident Benefits Claims
Over the years while in practice, I had more than a few clients surprised by a reality they never expected. They were...
Delay Reset: A Cultural Reckoning in Ontario’s Civil Justice System
For decades, delay has been treated as an unfortunate by-product of Ontario’s civil justice system. In truth, it has...
Before You Leap: Pre-Litigation Protocols and the Discipline of Early Seriousness
When I transitioned from defence work to my own plaintiff-side practice around 2000, I made a conscious effort to...
BLOG SERIES: Special Considerations in… Heavy Commercial Vehicle Accidents
Heavy commercial vehicle (“HCV”) accidents occupy a distinctive and demanding corner of motor vehicle litigation....
Out of the Trenches: Civil Rules Reform of Motions in Ontario
When the Phase 2 Consultation Paper landed, motions reform was the part of the package that made the litigation bar...
Demise of the Clown Car: How Ontario’s Civil Rules Reform Takes Aim at Competing Experts
Ontario civil litigators have lived with an uncomfortable truth for years, that expert evidence often adds volume...
Door Ajar: Access to Justice and Civil Rules Reform
In my last post, “A System on the Brink”, I focused on the Final Policy Report[1] of the Civil Rules Review Working...
Looking Back to Move Forward: Civil Justice Then, Now, and What Comes Next
When the System Was Built for a Different Time I started my legal career in the late 80’s in Ontario, an era when...
REVIEW: Chapter 8: Discovery as a Forum for Persuasive Advocacy
When in practice, I had a trick where I would attend an examination for discovery and, sometimes during or sometimes...