Adult Children's Access to Parents Now Mandatory in China

The BBC has reported on an innovative new law enacted by the Chinese government that would require adult children to visit their parents or risk being sued by the state for their neglect. This is a serious problem in China, which lacks affordable elder care despite an eighth of the population being over sixty.In British Columbia, where we do have a socialized system of health care and elder care options, we are of course proceeding in the opposite direction. Not only do we not have a law requiring adult children to visit their parents,...

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New Code of Professional Conduct in Force in January

The new Code of Professional Conduct (PDF), the primary ethical guide governing the conduct of lawyers in British Columbia, will be in effect on 1 January 2013. The new Code will replace the Professional Conduct Handbook, which has provided guidance to lawyers for the last twenty years.According to an article published in the Law Society's newsletter Benchers' Bulletin, the rational for the new Code stems from the need to harmonize ethical standards among the provinces and territories to allow lawyers to more easily practice in multiple jurisdictions....

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Time Running Out to Complete Important CBA/NJI Survey

A few weeks ago, the Canadian Bar Association distributed an invitation to members of its family law section to participate in a survey being conducted by the National Judicial Institute. Time is running out; the survey will close on Friday 14 December 2012.The NJI is the primary national organization providing continuing judicial education and the survey is timed for use at the Institute's family law seminar in February 2013. The survey is of particular importance for family law lawyers as it concerns the most difficult of all problems,...

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Mediate BC Launches Program Addressing Support for Adult Children

Mediate BC has announced the launch of a new pilot project — the Child Support Eligibility Mediation Project — intended to address the often contentious issue of child support in respect of children who have reached or are approaching the age of majority. According to the society's statement, the aim of the program is to "help separated families resolve disputes concerning the eligibility of adult children for child support and special expenses" by creating an educational plan with the assistance of a mediator.The service free and...

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Attorney General Appoints Nine New Provincial Court Judges

Attorney General and Minister of Justice Shirley Bond has today appointed nine new judges to the Provincial Court bench. According to the Ministry's press release, Surrey will be getting two judges and Kamloops, North Vancouver, the Northeast district, Port Coquitlam and Vancouver will each get one judge. Two judges will be assigned to work out of the Office of the Chief Judge.The new judges, almost of whom have backgrounds in criminal law, will bring the judicial complement of the court up to 131.80 full-time equivalent judges,...

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Salvation Army Pro Bono Program Shut Down

I am very sorry to report that the Salvation Army's pro bono legal advice program has shut down. Although I understand that self-sufficient regional clinics may be maintained, the clinics run out of the program's central Vancouver office at Belkin House, such as the clinics at the Robson Square Provincial Court registry and the Caring Place in Maple Ridge, are terminated effective immediately. This is a really disappointing development; the program was run very efficiently and served thousands of people, and I've been volunteering with the program...

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Regulations to Family Law Act Published

The orders in council implementing the regulations required by the new Family Law Act were made on 23 November 2012 and published on 26 November 2012.The regulations will, as of 18 March 2013, the day the Family Law Act comes into force, repeal the regulations under the old Family Relations Act and replace them with the Family Law Act Regulation (PDF) and the Family Law Act Pension Regulation (PDF). A host of regulations to other statutes, from the Contaminated Sites Regulation to the International Business Activity Regulation,...

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New Provincial Court Report: Fewer judges now than in 2010

The Provincial Court of British Columbia has quietly published an updated document (PDF) detailing both new judicial appointments and judges lost to the court between 30 September 2010 and 31 October 2012.Boiling it all down, the numbers show that the court has a judicial complement of 123.80 full-time equivalent judges now, three judges less than the complement of 126.30 the court had this time in 2010, and twenty judges below the 143.65 judges the court had in 2005.In 2010, the court published a powerful a report detailing the effects of...

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Competition Heats Up for Family Law Arbitrator Training

The Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia, the preeminent provider of legal education for lawyers in the province, has just announced a training opportunity for family law lawyers wanting to practice as arbitrators, mere days after information about a similar course being released by the BC Arbitiration and Mediation Institute; see my post below. CLE's offering is scheduled to run from Tuesday 5 February to Saturday 9 February 2013 at a standard rate of $1,950, about $1,000 cheaper than the BCAMI offering and two weeks earlier.So...

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MediateBC Releases Updated Guidelines for Distance Mediation

MediateBC has announced the release of the Distance Family Mediation Project’s second edition of Mediating from a Distance: Suggested Practice Guidelines for Family Mediators (PDF). According to the blog post announcing the release:"The guidelines are a detailed compilation of the knowledge acquired by our Distance Family Mediation Project on the topic of how to conduct family mediation 'from a distance', using technology. The project – which took place in three phases, beginning in 2007 – explored the feasibility of using information and communication...

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BCAMI Family Law Arbitrator Training Set for February 2013

The British Columbia Arbitration and Mediation Institute has been working to develop training (DOC) for family law arbitrators since the Family Law Act became law last November. They must be ready to go, because the first session is set for five days beginning on 18 February 2013. I understand that the cost will be just under $3,000.Unfortunately, I don't know much more about the BCAMI's new offering apart from this. BCAMI's ordinary arbitrator training is given in Vancouver by esteemed lawyer and arbitrator Glen Bell and requires three...

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Family Law Act: New Resource for Justice System Workers and Advocates

I've put together an overview (PDF) of the new Family Law Act for people who work in the justice system and legal advocates. Please feel free to download and to distribute, reproduce and reuse as you'd like, as long as it's not for a commercial purpose.This overview will be updated from time to time to clarify issues and correct typos. The current version is dated 7 November 2012 (previous version - 3 November 2012); please download the updated document (PD...

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Legal Aid Publishes Booklet on Family Law Act

The Legal Services Society, the organization providing legal aid services in British Columbia, has announced the publication of a new booklet, Guide to the New BC Family Law Act (PDF). The booklet is based on a series of posts on the legislation published between February and September this year on the Electronic Legal Aid News blog, and is written in accessible plain language.LSS has done a great job discussing and publicizing the Family Law Act. The society's Family Law in British Columbia website in particular is an extremely useful...

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Family Law Act: Changes to Rules of Court

The Ministry of Justice, in its increasingly useful webpage on the new Family Law Act, has posted information about changes to the Supreme Court Family Rules and the Provincial Court (Family) Rules that will come into effect on 18 March 2013 at the same time as the new legislation.Rule ChangesThe amendments to both courts' rules include:implementing the new terminology used by the Family Law Act (for example, parental responsibilities, parenting time and parentage tests);addressing the new concepts introduced in the act (for example, parenting...

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The Self-Represented Litigant's Bill of Rights ...and Responsibilities

Today I've launched a new page in this blog, The Self-Represented Litigant's Bill of Rights ...and Responsibilities, to which you'll find a link in the list at the upper right-hand portion of this page with a much briefer title, "The Litigant's Bill of Rights."The purpose of the page is to describe the expectations self-represented persons ought to have of the people they meet on the way through a court proceeding: the court staff who assist in court processes, the lawyers who may act for the other parties, and the judges and masters who hear case...

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Alberta Associate Chief Justice Releases Dissertation on Maverick Litigants

Associate Chief Justice Rooke of the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench has just published his decision in Meads v. Meads. This decision is remarkable and should be, I suggest, required reading for judges, lawyers, court administrators and court clerks across the country.The judgment in Meads is a treatise, a manifesto and a cri de coeur addressing a certain sort of disaffected, maverick litigant which has been clogging up Canada's courts with contrived, pseudolegal arguments and irrational, histrionic demands for a number of years. Mr. Justice Rooke's...

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The Cleavers Are Moving Out: StatsCan reports on the changing face of the Canadian family

Statistics Canada has published the results of the 2011 Census, and its analysis of the changing makeup of the Canadian family is worthy of note. As CBC's article on the analysis pithily notes, "the nuclear family is no longer the norm in Canada." The newsbite summary of Statistics Canada's conclusions says this:Married-couple families were the predominant family structure in 2011, at 67.0%. For the first time, there were more common-law-couple families in 2011, 16.7%, than lone-parent families, 16.3%.The 2011 Census of Population counted 64,575...

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Supreme Court Releases Decision on the Naming of Children

On Friday, the Supreme Court released its decision in Landa-McAuliffe v. Boland which addresses, among other things, the factors the court should take into account when being asked to name a child. The factual background behind this aspect of the case is neatly summarized by the court itself:[14] Briefly, Ms. Boland changed [the child's] name from “____ ____ ____ Landa” to “____ ____ ____ Boland Landa” in order to include her own surname. She appears to have sought this change under s. 4 of the Name Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 328. That...

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Family Law Act: Law Society Task Force Releases Practice Requirements, Government Announces No Fall Sitting

Proposed Practice Requirements On Friday 7 September 2012, the Law Society's Family Law Task Force released its recommendations (PDF) on the qualifications lawyers should be required to have before being able to practice as family law arbitrators, family law mediators and parenting coordinators as provided under the new Family Law Act. The proposed qualifications are rigourous, and, I suspect, appropriately so.Family Law ArbitratorsThe Task Force recommends that lawyers practicing as family law arbitrators have 10 years of practice...

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Access Pro Bono Drop-In Legal Advice Events

Access Pro Bono's annual open-air legal advice event is running today in Vancouver from 10:00am to 5:00pm at Victory Square Park, at 200 West Hastings Street. The free event is intended to facilitate access to justice for low- and modest-income people, including the homeless, on all legal issues and to raise money to support the organization's programs through pledges raised by the volunteer lawyers.The even repeats in New Westminster from 10:00am to 2:00pm on 11 September 2012 at Hyack Square, in Kelowna from 10:00am to 2:00pm on 14 September...

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Trio Tie the Knot in Brazil

CNN reports that a public notary in Brazil has "set off a firestorm" by granting a civil union registration to a trio composed of one man and two women. According to the article, the three live together and love one another like persons in any other cohabiting relationship, and granting the registration will give the trio the legal benefits of marriage and recognition as a family unit.This raises of course, a question that has been waiting to be raised in British Columbia for some time now. The Family Relations Act defines "spouse" as including...

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Guest Column: "Six Tips for Single Parents with Back to School Children"

by Lois TarterSummer is almost over and a new school year is on the horizon. The back to school divorced parent has a lot to deal with by the time the first school bell rings. When a new school year kicks off there are adjustments for kids and parents alike in any household. Here are six helpful tips that will get you through the tough transitional process this school year.Don’t Burn Out: No need to take on the world. In the end, you will wind up getting burnt out. A single parent needs to take a steady, but comfortable pace and they will win the...

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Unmarried Couples, the Division of Property and the New Family Law Act

Courthouse Libraries BC has posted a short comment of mine on how the transitional provisions of the Family Law Act are going to work with unmarried couples' existing property claims. Read the post on Courthouse Libraries' blog, The Stre...

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Kerr v. Baranow 2.0: Supreme Court Releases Second Trial Decision

Ms. Kerr and Mr. Baranow are one of those unfortunate couples, like Mr. and Mrs. Hartshorne and Ms. Rick and Mr. Brandsema, whose legal battles have doomed them to fame within the family law bar. The Supreme Court has just published its second trial judgment addressing the matters arising from their 2006 separation.At the original trial in 2007, Ms. Kerr applied for spousal support and a trust interest in property owned by Mr. Baranow. As the parties were unmarried, Ms. Kerr could not avail herself of the property provisions of the Family Relations...

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Supreme Court Releases Decision on Property Claims, Separation Agreements and Indepedent Legal Advice

The Supreme Court has recently released its decision in Giebelhaus v. Giebelhaus, a case in which the husband asked the court to divide property, in the face of a separation agreement he had signed on the subject, under s. 65 of the Family Relation Act. As usual, I'm not so much interested in the particular facts of the case as I am in the court's review of the law.The court reviewed two important decisions, J.K.T. v. A.J.T., a recent case of our Supreme Court, and Hartshorne v. Hartshorne, a 2004 case of the Supreme Court of Canada. In J.K.T.,...

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Guest Column: "Pros and Cons of Divorced Parents Sharing a Nanny"

by Maryanne WilliamsEven the most amicable divorce is likely to leave your children feeling confused and disillusioned, especially if that divorce contributes to a shift in economic status or is the driving force behind a move from the home they’ve grown up in. Because a divorce may facilitate the need for a previously stay-at-home parent to return to the workforce, it may also leave parents in need of a full-time childcare provider. Sharing a nanny with your ex certainly has its pros and cons; however there are a few things to consider...

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Paying the Fees of Child Advocates

A "child advocate" is a lawyer hired to represent the interests of a child in a family law dispute between the child's parents. (Once upon a time, the court could have appointed a "family advocate" under s. 2 of the Family Relations Act, however the provincial government defunded this program years ago.) I have been retained as a child advocate and it is a challenging but very rewarding role.My friend Agnes Huang has pointed me to a very interesting case from the Supreme Court in 2010, C.L.M. v. D.J.M., on the issues of whether and how...

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A Note About the Present Effect of the New Family Law Act

I've been getting a lot of questions over the past few weeks about the status and current effect of the Family Law Act, a fair number of which have come from colleagues. Here's the deal.The Family Law Act passed third reading on 23 November 2011 and received royal assent the next day. However, the lion's share of the new act is not presently in force. The act will come fully into force on 18 March 2013. The parts of the act that are not in force — which is all of the important parts, really, including the parts about the care of children and the...

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