Skip to main content

Steps in the Family Law Court Process: The Application

Family Law Court Process

If you start litigation in your family law matter, or if you are served with a court application or motion to change, there are several major steps along the road toward a judicial decision:


Step 1: The Application

Unless you have a court order or a signed contract, the way in which you would begin the court process is through an application. In discussion with your lawyer, you would decide what claim(s) to make and list the facts that you intend to rely on to support the claim(s). 

If you are making claims that involve support or property, you will also have to prepare a financial statement that accompanies the application. Your lawyer will help you identify which type of financial statement and to gather the required supporting documents, which we generally call "disclosure."

If your application includes a claim for decision making responsibility, you will also have to swear to a document called an affidavit for parenting matters, which sets out information about the child(ren) and ongoing situation that may involve Children's Aid Society.

Once the required documents are ready, your lawyer arranges for them to be filed in proper court and served on the other parties (e.g. the estranged or ex- common law partner, husband, wife).

Find a Family Law Lawyer serving Stratford and Perth County

Stratford courthouse

Labels:
Location: Stratford, ON, Canada

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Steps in the Family Law Court Process: Step 5 - The Settlement Conference

Family Law Court Process - The Settlement Conference In previous articles, I wrote about what you could expect at early stages of the family law court process. The procedure is that after a case conference and possibly a motion, another pre-trial hearing called a settlement conference is scheduled. At times a settlement conference can be combined with a case conference, but often a settlement conference will be held separately and after all disclosure has been made. A matter cannot proceed to trial without having held a settlement conference. What Can I Expect at My Settlement Conference? A settlement conference is intended to promote resolution of the issues after all financial disclosure and reporting has been made to the parties and the court. With the benefit of the entire picture, a judge at a settlement conference is in a position to provide a judicial opinion that gives each party a solid assessment of the strengths and weakn...
Post a Comment
Read more

One Dog, Two Lawyers

The Point Having an emotional connection with the pet is not enough to establish ownership.  A Dog and Two Lawyers Two years ago, a decision came out that decided who got the dog in a separation. I find it interesting because of how the dispute started and that fact that there was only one dog but two people arguing over it.  In a previous post, I wrote about a case that had two dogs in dispute during a separation, and each partner ended up receiving one dog each. The judge seemed to take a broad approach to deciding. There is also an intuitive dimension where it's easier to say, 'Keep one each and call it a day.' But in the case I'm about to introduce, the dog could not be split two ways and it appears that the classic way of finding out who owns something was used by the judge to decide who got to keep the dog. The classic way is finding out who is the registered owner (or, who is on title).  In this case , the dog was a Boxer named Layla.  Photo credit: IslandHopp...
Post a Comment
Read more