ethics of lawyers

[Tayken]

Locating someone in Canada is not hard in legal matters.

1. Skip tracers (PI's) can pretty much find anyone given name and some backing information. Retain one.
2. You can obtain an order for a Sheriff to also locate the person. In Ontario sheriffs are part of the Superior Court of Justice Enforcement Office, which was previously named (and is still sometimes referred to as) the Sheriff's Office. They are very good at finding people.

Your lawyer, can get these disclosures done at a Settlement Conference and with no need of a motion. You can even get your costs for having to retain the PI if you go that path to locate a litigant. But, you need to focus on locating the person in question if you are not able to locate them through regular means. You don't even need the other party at the SC. Just insure that you put in your brief all the disclosures you want and ask the judge to order the disclosures (which they can do!) right then and there. 99% of them do it as its a matter of moving the case forward.

As well, its not widely known but, a judge at a SC can order CS to be ordered. Good lawyers can get non-appearing parties, with the right filings, imputed income and CS ordered. This takes some understanding but, any lawyer, in my opinion, who practices primarily in Family Law in Ontario should know how to do this.

Any lawyer worth their salt knows the various ways to locate and serve the opposing party. Its near impossible to vanish in Canada.

As well, you can as a part of a Settlement Conference get any and all disclosure orders. You can even get open orders that you can inquire with every financial institute. Estate lawyers have to do this all the time to locate people who are heirs to family money all the time.

A search for "skip tracer Ontario" nets about 312,000 results (0.30 seconds). Contact one and get the ball rolling. Stop playing victim and hire a lawyer who knows what they are doing and stop letting excuses pile up.

[Tayken]

Having no salaried job (i.e., no T4) while being able to afford high-quality legal representation has always been a significant advantage for stalling proceedings and sidestepping financial responsibilities. The Family Responsibility Office (FRO) is a perfect example of a system struggling to keep up, and Small Claims Court can take years to resolve even the simplest disputes. By all accounts, things have deteriorated from their pre-Covid state across the board.

Court is not the only option. Settle matters. Arbitration. Etc...

From my experience, self-representing is far easier than most people are led to believe, emotional components included. The real challenge lies in discovering that for oneself amidst a dearth of reliable information. It's almost as if there's a concerted effort to obscure the viability of self-representation, maintaining the status quo of dependency on legal professionals. This trend, I'd argue, isn't incidental but rather a reflection of a system designed to perpetuate its complexity and necessity—intentionally so.

Disagree strongly on your first point that "self-representing is far easier than people are led to believe". In case law there are few successful unrepresented litigants with success such as WorkingDad. Knowing WorkingDad personally (Я знаю його в реальному житті) I can honestly say I have never met a single unrepresented litigant that can do what he does. There are those who "believe" they can but, having spent personally 1000s of hours with him on his matter most people want instant and easy access to information. They won't do the digging he does. He basically read all the first year law books and beyond. He spent hundreds of hours in the law libraries at Universities reading and learning. He met with and talked to top experts on his own accord. He created a network of support far beyond what any unrepresented litigant can do. His cross examination of the OCL clinician was hundreds of hours of research on how to do it. He built software systems to assist him in his "devastating" examination on the stand of the OCL investigator.

I haven't seen anything contributed by you newerwavers that even comes close to the depth of knowledge WorkingDad had/has.

Feel free to post your caselaw for all to review and/or scan in your whole magical case file and post it. Its a matter of public record if it went to court anyways.

[Tayken]

As well, I will quote Working dad in Ukrainian and English:

UKR: Я не представляю себе, я не представлений. Якби я міг дозволити собі адвоката, я б його мав. Це різниця, ваша честь.

ENG: I do not represent myself, I am not represented. If I could afford a lawyer I would have one. That's the difference, your honor.

That is a direct quote to the Honourable Mr. Justice Pazaratz when he corrected the Honourable Justice on the use and reference to him as a "self represented" litigant. See, WorkingDad would have hired a lawyer if could have afforded one. Never ever think that WorkingDad did what he did because he "could" do it. He did what he did because he couldn't afford a lawyer.

A self represented litigant is someone who chooses to do it themselves often because they think it is "easy" to do. Unrepresented litigants have to do it because they have no other option. Get that squared away in your head.

[StillPaying]

A self represented litigant is someone who chooses to do it themselves often because they think it is "easy" to do. Unrepresented litigants have to do it because they have no other option. Get that squared away in your head.

I never looked at it like this but it makes sense. It is very limited and rare when someone could self rep. I will always say having a lawyer is better. Unfortunately it's not a reality for all making unrepresented a no choice situation.

The system is designed to help the unrepresented with the ease of forms, appearances and conferences. This is where the limited hand holding ends. Motions are very serious where orders will affect you and big dollars can come into play with cost. Trial is a whole other beast, where all your research time spent so far will easily double.

It's not unattainable by any means but you're right - be prepared to spend hours everyday studying, researching, countless meetings at flic, and asking questions here as you go. The appearances are limited but the paperwork is endless. And then there's trial...

[rockscan]

They also do it because they can't find a lawyer to represent them. One of the dads on here that I worked with, his ex was fired by three lawyers and she self repped and was a disaster. Ditto for my husband's ex. Her lawyer told my husband's lawyer he was on a limited scope retainer because she wouldn't listen to his advice. He came on fully for the settlement conference as she was struggling to resolve the matter. Too bad neither one of these women understood they were the barrier to a settlement!

[Victorviola]

Question: march 5th ex was served with request to admit via mail and courier, (as his email for the past 6 moths has bounced back from the lawyers office) he responded on April 4th via email to my lawyer, He blames my lawyer for the email bouncing back, and says he only received the request to admit march 24th. My lawyers legal assistant also spoke with my ex on march 5th at which time he advised he has no email and is not willing to setup a new one. ( and he's an IT professional) priceless... he is past the due date of 20 days, he states that he should be given more time to respond.... thoughts???