Outcomes

Trials
Trials are extremely rare in family law. Fewer than 5% of family law cases ever proceed to trial, and as such it’s extremely unlikely to happen in your case. This is partially because of all of the Conferences that promote settlement and all of the opportunities to resolve matters outside of court. Additionally, Trials last several days and involve a great deal of preparation time, and as such are extremely expensive for the parties – as such, the parties are strongly motivated to avoid trial.

In an effort to ensure unbiased trials, any Judge who has presided over a Conference in your case cannot be the Judge at the Trial. This also ensures that any settlement proposals remain confidential throughout the trial process. In addition to the Trial itself, there are numerous written documents that must be submitted to the Court during a trial.

In Ontario, there are no juries in family matters and Judge makes the decision alone. As such, decisions aren’t provided on the day of the trial and the Judge takes time to draft a written decision.

Trials are prohibitively expensive and require dozens of hours of preparation in addition to court time.

Court Orders
Any decision made by a court can be turned into a Court Order. Unless a decision is turned into an Order, it cannot be enforced using the powers of the court. Additionally, a Court Order can be enforced by the Family Responsibility Office (“FRO”). The Family Responsibility Office has the ability to garnish a party’s wages and bank account.

A typical decision of the court is handwritten by the Judge. The lawyer of the “winning” party must type the Court Order in a formal manner and have it approved by the lawyer of the “losing” party. After the lawyers have agreed on the wording it is filed with the Court.

Costs
In order to promote settlement and prevent vexatious conduct, Judges typically order the “losing” party to pay costs to the “winning” party. When we refer to “costs”, we are talking about a Judge ordering one party to pay some or all of the other party’s legal fees. Typically, costs are apportioned by a Judge at each step of the case based. This can be a powerful tool in promoting settlement in some cases, because as the case gets more serious and expensive the potential cost consequences grow more and more extreme.