In continuation of previous 3 days' posts about my motion to vary spousal support based on material change in circumstances.
Today we met with the mid-trial justice to get an endorsement of our settlement that we began negotiating yesterday. It was endorsed as a final order, so....it's done. 16 months after filing my motion to lower spousal support due to material change in my circumstances, I now have spousal support agreement that fits my income reductions over the past two years. It's not exactly everything I wanted, but I prefer to move on with life. It's lower than my last offer to settle pre-trial, so that's great.
Before we cleared the court the trial justice wanted to speak with us as well (according to the clerks trial justices rarely ever meet the litigants when there is a settlement mid trial). He interrupted another trial he was conducting in order to give us a few words: he expressed thanks for saving his time so he could move to a child custody trial he said was pressing; he stated that he felt our settlement was 'good' resolution so we can move on with our lives; he was glad that we could put behind us several years of warring with each other; he also congratulated both of us for preparing for trial better than 'many' of the lawyers he sees and thus saving him time. As the matter is over I'll state that our trial judge was the Honourable Justice Rowsell at Oshawa Family Court. I credit him with conducting two very good days of trial separating the issues for trial and making clear what needed to be addressed and what was irrelevant - I believe this allowed the mid-trial Justice Olah to have the materials to express an opinion which lead to a settlement that I could accept.
Of course, I could have rolled the dice on trial and it might have come out slightly better. Or not. In some ways I would like to have seen the trial through to then end, to get years of acrimony heard, settled and judged. But this is where I discover that I can't always listen to ego. It's humbling.
On the weekend I will post a 'reflection' on the past 16 months about where I went wrong in my own defense, what I did right, what I learned late - hopefully this will help self represented forum members manage and control their own cases. I will review the various applications of family law and procedures, the family law forms and other relevant matters I struggled and dealt with - so that members can hopefully benefit from the hard learning I had to go through.
It's a good day.
FG
Today we met with the mid-trial justice to get an endorsement of our settlement that we began negotiating yesterday. It was endorsed as a final order, so....it's done. 16 months after filing my motion to lower spousal support due to material change in my circumstances, I now have spousal support agreement that fits my income reductions over the past two years. It's not exactly everything I wanted, but I prefer to move on with life. It's lower than my last offer to settle pre-trial, so that's great.
Before we cleared the court the trial justice wanted to speak with us as well (according to the clerks trial justices rarely ever meet the litigants when there is a settlement mid trial). He interrupted another trial he was conducting in order to give us a few words: he expressed thanks for saving his time so he could move to a child custody trial he said was pressing; he stated that he felt our settlement was 'good' resolution so we can move on with our lives; he was glad that we could put behind us several years of warring with each other; he also congratulated both of us for preparing for trial better than 'many' of the lawyers he sees and thus saving him time. As the matter is over I'll state that our trial judge was the Honourable Justice Rowsell at Oshawa Family Court. I credit him with conducting two very good days of trial separating the issues for trial and making clear what needed to be addressed and what was irrelevant - I believe this allowed the mid-trial Justice Olah to have the materials to express an opinion which lead to a settlement that I could accept.
Of course, I could have rolled the dice on trial and it might have come out slightly better. Or not. In some ways I would like to have seen the trial through to then end, to get years of acrimony heard, settled and judged. But this is where I discover that I can't always listen to ego. It's humbling.
On the weekend I will post a 'reflection' on the past 16 months about where I went wrong in my own defense, what I did right, what I learned late - hopefully this will help self represented forum members manage and control their own cases. I will review the various applications of family law and procedures, the family law forms and other relevant matters I struggled and dealt with - so that members can hopefully benefit from the hard learning I had to go through.
It's a good day.
FG
Comment