Associate counsel, Jenny Kirshen, is fully qualified to conduct "Collaborative Law" cases. This is a very welcome addition to the services that we offer at our firm. To learn more, click here for our recent blog post on Collaborative Law. In February 2023, Jenny was elected to the Board of Collaborative Divorce Toronto

With courts and governments coming to believe that Covid 19 is no longer a public health threat, courts across the province have been jumping to the conclusion that judges, lawyers and litigants should generally speaking be back in court... in person! But we all discovered during the Covid hay days that there are very significant cost savings to be gleaned from remote hearings. Where a court attendance might be for 15 minutes, a half hour or an hour, there is travel time to and from court; there is waiting time at court. During Covid a lawyer could sit productively at his/her desk working away and then when the hearing started, the lawyer would refocus attention and tend to that case. So the client incurred a charge of 15 minutes or one half hour and that was it. Huge Savings!!!!

Gene C. Colman has been in the forefront of the movement to try to persuade government and Chief Justices that the presumptive mode of hearing should be "remote". The Ad Hoc Family Law Lawyers Committee has hosted an online poll that garnered almost 1,500 lawyer signatures across the province. We have exchanged correspondence with judges' administration and with the Attorney General himself. We have attended meetings. We are currently partnering with respected academics to survey the legal community about their experiences with remote versus in person. We are working hard to bring cost savings and other efficiencies to our family law legal system.

In January 2023 we welcomed an additional law clerk, Katherine Henderson. Katherine is very experienced indeed and brings to the table a wide range of family law talents.

Come the spring and summer, we are looking forward to two more additions, both from The Lincoln Alexander School of Law (Ryerson).

(1) Jordan Shanlin is completing her 2nd year of law school. She will be our summer student starting in May and she will continue for the fall semester in a practicum work placement.

(2) Riley Scott had been with us on a work practicum for the 2022 Fall Semester. Riley is now completing her third and final year of law school and then will be rejoining us in July 2023 - first as a student but shortly thereafter as a fully qualified lawyer. (Due to Ryerson's emphasis on practical training, Ryerson students are not required to article.) And since we know Riley's work very well already, we are super confident that she will be hitting the ground running so to speak and be a very competent and knowledgeable addition to our roster of associate lawyers.

For a few years now, and from time to time (generally not more than once per week), Gene C. Colman gathers together pithy little quotes from the Equal Shared Parenting literature and sends them out to subscribers. It may be an excerpt from the social sciences, it may be a reported case excerpt, it might be a news article. Sometimes, he will share his own views. These tidbits are then republished at the firm's website.

To view past issues of our Equal Shared Parenting Thought of the Day and/or to sign up for future issues - CLICK HERE.

And here in any event are a few samples from past issues:

Colman has been actively posting to social media for some time. Don't miss an insight, a quip, a criticism, an observation. Most of the posts address Equal Shared Parenting and Parental Alienation. Here are the symbols to click and join me into your social media circle:

Gene C. Colman

We co-sponsored the interdisciplinary conference, Sept. 15 and 16, 2022, in Toronto (in person and virtual): "Fatherhood and Men's Experiences with Violence and Victimization". Gene C. Colman gave a well received presentation on the expanded definitions of "family violence" in the Divorce Act. Here is the link to the next conference to be held on Oct. 12 and 13, 2023 -"The Complexities of Men and Abuse in an International Context: An Academic-Community Approach". The Gene C. Colman Family Law Centre is co-sponsoring that conference as well.

We co-sponsored the annual FDRIO fall conference in November 2022 - Family Dispute Resolution Institute of Ontario.

We have signed on to co-sponsor "The National Parents Organization" celebration of Shared Parenting Day on 26 April 2023. If you are interested in Shared Parenting, then the NPO website is not to be missed.

We have signed on to co-sponsor the 17th Annual Charger Foundation Golf Tournament in support of "The Canadian Centre for Men and Families" to be held on 19 September 2023.

We are pleased to announce a successful Arbitration result for our client in a relocation case.

Our client's spouse was marginalizing our client's time with the children and a resist/refuse dynamic had emerged with one child. We engaged in mediation and brought on a reunification therapist.

It later became apparent that the spouse was intending to relocate with the children, one hour away, to his new partner's home. This was just far enough to significantly impact the equal and shared parenting time arrangement, as set out in their Parenting Plan Agreement (even though one child was resisting). When it became clear that the spouse was relocating the mediation was terminated in favour of a four-day Arbitration hearing to determine whether the children could relocate and what the parenting time regime would be following the spouse's relocation.

Jenny Kirshen and Gene Colman were totally successful in arguing this case. Our client was awarded primary residence and the children were prevented from relocating. Therapy continued.

O v. O - is a case where we represented the Father and were successful in securing the return of his abducted daughters to Nigeria. The Supreme Court of Canada recently cited O. v. O.: https://canlii.ca/t/jt977