Advanced Family Law: Resolving the Family Law Case (LAW329H1S)

Note: This course is offered every other year and may be offered again in 2025-2026.

This course will canvass, at a sophisticated level, various areas of family law, including parenting issues, child and spousal support, division of property, domestic contracts and divorce. Using a problem-solving approach, we will look at various family law scenarios and examine how modern techniques of dispute resolution can be used to resolve these problems. The course will examine negotiation, mediation, arbitration, collaborative law and the adversarial system in a family law context.

Students will have an in-depth opportunity to examine how family law problems can be resolved in an effective fashion and understand how the family law system operates in Canada. The focus of the course will be on the distinctive problems raised in the context of the breakdown of family relationships, which necessarily involves the complex interaction of legal and emotional issues. Throughout the course, students will be encouraged to critically examine the current family law statutory regime, including analyzing some of the practical problems posed by the legislation and exploring potential avenues of legal reform.