The Best Broadbased Canadian Family Law Sites

Gene C. Coleman
Gene's site is certainly one of the most informative of the Canadian family law sites on a variety of substantive issues. But it comes with a clear view - that, all things considered, there's an inbuilt gender bias against men in the present family law system. Gene's site has a wonderful set of articles he has written on a wide range of subjects as well as access to various family law links. If a subject he has dealt with is of relevance to a particular case you're dealing with, you're well advised to check it out and consider recommending it to a client for her or him to review on their own. I suggest taking a few moments to look over the various items on Gene's site, and to check back from time to time as he adds more, so you'll know what part of this resource you can use with a client whenever the appropriate moment arises. Gene practices in Toronto, Ont.

Duhaime's Canadian Family Law Centre
Lloyd Duhaime, practising in Victoria, B.C., is one prolific Internet lawyer. His Canadian Family Law Centre is of particular interest for us not only because it has a variety of basic family law information written with the interested layman in mind, but because his site is one of those places that just draws you in once you're there. Visit his sections on Canadian Legal History (from 28,000 BC until 1992), the Law Museum, and Law(t) of Fun sections. I don't know Mr. Duhaime, but if his conversation is as interesting as his writing style, he'd be a delightful and informative guest at any dinner party. He practices law in Victoria, B.C.

Joel Miller's Family Law Centre (the FLC)
Please forgive the lack of modesty, but I love this site. The various Directories of the FLC site make it of some use for almost all family law clients. The Resources Directory contains links with comments to such topics as Abuse, Adoption, Canadian Family Law, Canadian Family Law Lawyers on the Internet, Divorce and Divorcing, Gay and Lesbian Rights, and Missing Children, amongst others. The Resource sections on Collaborative Family Law and on Parental Alienation, in particular, are quite extensive. Sending a client here allows him or her to find out more information about these topics. The home page has links to resources relating to the Child Support Guidelines, and Family Law Legislation, as well as the largest Directory available on the Internet of Canadian family law lawyers. (It's free and you can have your name added by emailing your info.)

One of the most interesting sections of the site for clients across Canada is the Speakers Corner section. This is a bulletin board section which had 23 different forums and was extremely active on a daily basis. Unfortunately it was "hijacked" by a small group of malevolent people who so misused the feature that it had to be taken down. It's only just now been reactivated and it will likely take several months before its return is sufficiently known for it to be busy. But you can encourage a client to go there and read messages posted by ordinary people caught in the throws of a family law problem or to post a message of their own. Sometimes the grief and anguish, or the frustration, our clients are experiencing is placed into a better perspective when they see that their experience is shared by others, many of whom may be seen as having a worse set of circumstances. Often it helps a client just to know that they aren't the only ones with seemingly unsolvable problems. The ability to open up to someone else, without worrying about a lawyer's fee clock running, is often cathartic and people find that they may actually have some experience to offer others to help them out. The fact that this is done at a keyboard and through a screen with unknown people doesn't seem to diminish the experience.

If your client is interested in more than the basic sort of information about the Guidelines or other family law issues the Cases & Comments Directory is the place to visit. Look over the listing of comments and papers delivered at various legal education conferences which deal with the subject in which you're interested. Keep in mind that the comments set out here aren't always up-to-date and need to be understood carefully. But if you're familiar with what's there and advise your client to use this resource to give themselves a familiarity with the topic so that they'll better understand their situation, you can end up with a more informed client so that the advice you're giving will be better understood.

Lawrence Pascoe
Lawrence Pascoe is a lawyer in Nepean, Ontario with a really great family law site. If one was looking for finalists for the best Canadian family law website this would make the short list. It looks good, is easy to read and to navigate and has lots of features to it, including a legal quiz, articles and legal information packets. His site, The Pascoe Difference, is filled with information including "packets" of information on Family Law, Wills & Powers of Attorney and The Administration of Estates. There are articles he has written on various family law topics, a detailed Matrimonial Information form for clients to fill out to simplify matters for their lawyer as well as a place for clients to set out their expectations so you can know up front what they want from you as a lawyer. This is a really great site and you may well want to "borrow" some of the material Lawrence has put up on his site - after obtaining his permission first, of course.

Morrie Sacks
This is also one terrific site (actually two terrific sites) full of family law information. From the home page of the main site you can click onto a link to Morrie's Collaborative Divorce and Separation site (reviewed elsewhere in the Collaborative Family Law Section of this paper). The site is well designed and has a greater amount of useful information on a wide variety of family law topics than most sites around. While it contains some information of particular value to lawyers and people in British Columbia, most of its sections have application across the country. This is one of the sites we can recommend that our clients visit to get themselves informed on the general law about the issues concerning them. Really well worth visiting.

Law Society of Upper Canada's Great Library - What's New in Family Law
The Great Library of the Law Society of Upper Canada prepares digests of cases, articles, and news in a variety of areas, including family law, for BAR-eX, an Internet service designed for, and with access restricted to, the Ontario legal community. Each week, digests older than two months are also posted here on the Great LibraryÐs own website. The "What's New In Family Law" coverage includes divorce, matrimonial property, support, custody and access and is a really informative section to peruse on a regular basis. To be more current, Ontario lawyers can register, for free, directly with BAR-eX and get this info sent to you in an email bulletin.

The Department of Justice's Child Support Site
The Department of Justice Canada has a terrific website dealing with the Child Support Guidelines - just what you'd want to be available to the public and the profession. The site is dense with information at every level of interest, providing useful and understandable information for both our clients and us. Too often we encounter clients dealing with child support issues (and sometimes lawyers) who aren't as familiar with the way child support works as they should be. If you recommend they spend some time with this site they'll have a better idea of the reality within which we operate and their expectations will become more realistic. You can get the Tables, the wording of the Guidelines, lists of cases dealing with various sections, and more. This is a site you want to be familiar with for three reasons:

1. It's a valuable resource for us in our day to day practices.
   
2. It's a site you'll find useful to refer to clients so they can go through it on their own time and inform themselves on such things as what the regulations actually say, how much they can expect to pay or receive in your province for the children in their family, and more.
   
3. Clients adept at using the Internet will likely come across the site on their own and it makes things look better if you recommend it before they find it. This way you can show them you're are already aware of what's there or validate the effectiveness of what they've done if they already found it