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...
Mediation Re-engineered: Where Mandatory Mediation Fits in Ontario’s New Civil Justice System
One of the most consequential and quietly transformative aspects of the Civil Rules Review Working Group’s Final...
Ontario’s Civil Rules Review: A New Blueprint for Civil Justice
Ontario’s system of civil procedure stands at a crossroads. After decades of incremental amendments to the Rules of...
Social Host Liability: Turn Up the Lights, the Party’s Over
With the Christmas season approaching and holiday parties taking place all over the city, my mind recently turned back...
Sitting In the Circle: Reflections on Indigenous Mediation and the Space Between Legal Systems
A little-known fact about me is that I am of Indigenous ancestry and was among the Founding Members of the Qalipu...
The End of the Road: The Evolution of Summary Judgement in Ontario
Introduction What prompted me to write this piece on the evolution of summary judgment in Ontario was the recent Court...
Turning Point: Ontario’s Civil Rules Overhaul
It’s happening. Ontario’s civil justice system is approaching a turning point. I have been blogging about this moment...
Pulling the Strings: Proving Undue Influence in Canadian Estate Litigation
Introduction: Why Undue Influence Is So Hard To Prove Every estate litigator knows the script. An elderly parent...