In This Issue
October 2019 Update
CLE's and events attended
Sponsorships
Court Victories
Blog Posts
Advocate Daily Articles
October 25, 2019
Greetings!

Gene C. Colman Family Law Centre is pleased to provide you with our eNewsletter.   
25 Bowring Walk
Toronto, Ontario Canada M3H 5Z8 
Phone: 416-635-9264
Fax: 416-635-5468
We hope that our clients, former clients, colleagues, friends and others who have signed on to receive our newsletters will enjoy perusing this newsletter. (In case we have inadvertently intruded upon you, we apologize. You can easily opt out below.)  
Name Change: Kulbir Rehal has changed her last name as per her marriage in August 2018 and she is correcting the spelling of her maiden name. The same lawyer is now "Kulbir Kaur Rahal Vaid".
Jenny Kirshen - It's a Boy!: Jenny Kirshen gave birth to a healthy baby boy on October 7th. All is well.
Consultation
Our Consultation process is a very in depth examination and analysis of the challenges that the prospective client faces. For those who already have ongoing cases, we prefer to have at hand the entire set of pleadings for the case (ie. the "Continuing Record"). A staff member takes typed notes during the consultation, after which the staff member and Gene C. Colman refine the document into a comprehensive memorandum setting out future strategy and important tasks requiring completion. For a fuller description, see: https://www.complexfamilylaw.com/Consultation-Procedure.shtml and/or call our Law Clerk, Kim Pitre, at extension #100.
Continuing Legal Education is an important component of our professional lives. We endeavour to keep up with the law.  Attendees report the highlights to the rest of our team at our regular firm lunches.  Here is a sample of some courses that our lawyers have either recently attended or will attend soon:

Gene C. Colman:

  • 11 September 2019: Psychological Testing in Family Law, Association of Family & Conciliation Courts
  • 25 September 2019: Divorcemate Cloud, Family Dispute Resolution Institute of Ontario
  • 31 October 2019: The Family Law Limited Scope Project: Why? and Why Now, Family Dispute Resolution Institute of Ontario
  • 13 November 2019: Children's Voices in Family Law: Challenges for Lawyers, Association of Family & Conciliation Courts
Gloria Antwi:

  • 4 October 2019: Bread and Butter Issues in Family Law, Ontario Bar Association 
  • 22 October 2019: Conduct of the Family Law Motion, The Advocates' Society


Jessica Cohen

  • 5 November 2019: Intimate Partner Violence: What Family Lawyers Can Do About It
  • 12 November 2019: Recent Developments in Advanced Issues in Child and Spousal Support, Osgoode Hall Law School Professional Development

Kulbir Kaur Rahal Vaid

  • 27 September 2019: Pension and Retirement Assets on Relationship Breakdown, Osgoode Hall Law School Professional Development
  • 23 October 2019: Divorcemate Advanced Tools One, Divorcemate
Sponsorships and Community Involvement
We were pleased to sponsor the two Toronto screenings of " Erasing Family" - a powerful movie about parental alienation. Gene C. Colman attended the October 10th screening and Gloria Antwi attended the October 18th screening.
We are a Silver level sponsor for the November 18 conference of the Family Dispute Resolution of Ontario. Attending on behalf of the firm are Jessica Cohen and Kulbir K.R. Vaid.

Commencing very soon, our associate lawyers - Gloria Antwi and Kulbir K.R. Vaid - will be volunteering two evenings per month at the Canadian Centre for Men and Families ' Legal Clinics in Toronto and in Richmond Hill. The Toronto schedule is the 2nd and 3rd Monday evening of each month at 2 Homewood Ave, Unit 201. The Toronto time is 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. The meetings are conducted in an open forum that allows the lawyers and attendees to engage candidly about their issues and experiences. Attendees should be encouraged that this is a safe environment without judgment where they can discuss legal issues, legal strategies and seek guidance on their options. Details re the Richmond Hill clinic will be posted later.

Recent Firm Court Victories:
Paternity testing can indeed be very important. Associate counsel, Jenny Kirshen, achieved a significant and important court victory for our client. Our client's former partner cruelly taunted him with respect to whether or not he was the biological father of all three of their children. He had a close relationship with child #1 but marginal with child #2 and practically no contact with child #3. A previous testing order prior to our involvement was not implemented. We had to go back to court to secure a new order. We successfully obtained the order in face of the mom's ill-advised attempts to confuse the issues. It's not on CanLii just yet but if you have access to Westlaw/Carswell, the citation is 2019 CarswellOnt 15948.
(We linked this one in our previous newsletter as well. In case you missed it, this blog post is well worth a look.) There is indeed a better way to achieve resolutions more quickly and at a lower cost. It just requires a sea change in the way we lawyers do things.

If you behave badly during litigation, chances are that you will be penalized heavily in costs.

Men have to look after themselves first and we do not mean this in any sort of combative manner. Check out the link above and then read what Colman has to say about Fathers' Rights at the website.

The notion of what, exactly, is a "fair" result in a family law case can be different for any given person and based on the facts of any given case.

It helps to get in touch with your emotions.

Civility is the anchor. Fewer letters saves time and money. Be proactive to achieve quicker solutions.
Sincerely,

Gene C. Colman
Gene C. Colman Family Law Centre