What’s This Website About?

Often people deal with family law issues while they’re feeling angry, bewildered, confused, or uninformed. The breakup of a long term relationship and dealing with the issues of children, support, and division of property can be traumatic. At the very least, these are difficult issues to deal with. An effective family law lawyer helps clients going through this experience understand and express their primary goals and objectives and assists them to recognize which of those are realistically achievable. The experienced lawyer then sets out options to help the client achieve those realistic expectations. For a client to understand which of his or her expectations are realistic and achievable, they need to understand as well as possible the circumstances affecting them and the resolution of their particular matter.
 
To help clients get some preliminary understanding of the situation they're in the Family Law Centre site attempts to provide information on a wide range of topics. But the information set out is not legal advice and no one should rely upon anything they find here as a substitute for consulting with an experienced family law lawyer.
 
Please also remember that the state of the law discussed in this site is from an Ontario perspective and will vary somewhat, depending on what's being discussed, in the other provinces and territories in Canada. As well, the state of family law often changes swiftly and your situation may be dealt with differently than as set out in the site because of changes of law or of fresh judicial interpretations. Much of the information, however, applies to anyone dealing with the matters discussed whether in or out of Ontario or Canada. For that reason you'll find a number of references to American sites dealing with family law matters.
 
If you're looking for family law information there are two reasons why you should check with a knowledgeable family law lawyer in your own community before taking any steps.

  1. The first is to be sure about what the law says concerning your situation in the jurisdiction within which you live.
  2. The second is because the particular circumstances of your case may suggest different answers than those set out here for a general situation.