Glossary

Advice counsel are private lawyers or Legal Aid Ontario staff lawyers located in all family courts who give basic information on family law. For example, advice counsel can explain legal terms, how to start or respond to a court application, and the court process.

If your income is low enough, advice counsel can also give you legal advice about decision-making responsibility and parenting time, child support and spousal support, dividing property, divorce, and most other family law matters. Decision-making responsibility and parenting time used to be called custody and access.

Arbitration is an alternative dispute resolution process or family dispute resolution process where partners meet with a neutral person, called an arbitrator, to solve their issues without going to court. An arbitrator is usually a lawyer. A non-lawyer can also be an arbitrator if they have special family law training. If you and your partner cannot reach an agreement, the arbitrator makes a decision to solve your issues. Their decision is called a family arbitration award.

Balance of probabilities is the standard or legal test of proof usually required in a family law case. The judge has to decide who is more believable - you or your partner.

A case conference is a meeting between a judge and you and your partner, and your lawyers if you have any. The purposes of a case conference include:

• figuring out the issues that need to be solved in your case
• talking about ways to solve those issues without going to a trial
• figuring out the information you and your partner need to share

The Child Support Guidelines are the rules used to calculate how much child support a parent pays to help support their child financially.

The Guidelines include amounts of monthly child support that are based on the income of the parent who is paying support and the number of children they have to support. There is a separate table with amounts for each province. The table amounts cover expenses like clothes, food, and basic school supplies.

The Guidelines also include special or extraordinary expenses that may be paid in addition to the table amounts.

A closing statement is a summary of your evidence that you give the judge to tell them why you should get the court order you’re asking for. It can only refer to the evidence that you, your partner, or other witnesses talked about at trial. It cannot contain any new information.

A common-law relationship is one where partners of the same or opposite sex live together in a marriage-like relationship, without being married. This is sometimes called “cohabiting”. You don’t have to live together for a certain amount of time to be in a common-law relationship. But the law gives different rights to common-law partners depending on how long they’ve lived together or whether they have a child together.

A contact order is a court order that allows a child to have contact with a person who isn't a parent and who doesn't stand in the place of a parent, such as a step-parent. For example, contact can include visits or telephone or webcam calls with a grandparent or an aunt or uncle.

The court clerk is a person at the courthouse responsible for things like issuing documents, maintaining court files, and setting court dates.

Cross-examination is when one party, or their lawyer if they have one, questions the other party’s witnesses. The purpose of cross-examination is to test how true and reliable a witness’ answers are.

Debts are money that a person owes, for example, a mortgage, line of credit, car loan, etc.

Direct examination is when one party, or their lawyer if they have one, questions their own witnesses. These are witnesses you ask to testify or speak in support of your court case. Direct examination is also called examination-in-chief.

Property division is the process of dividing a married couple’s assets and debts. This usually happens after they separate or divorce.

Married couples usually share the value of their property. This means that the partner who has more property usually pays money to the partner who has less property. Usually, the property itself is not physically divided.

This is not true for people in a common-law relationship. They usually don’t have to share the value of their property if they separate.

Duty counsel are private lawyers or Legal Aid Ontario staff lawyers who give legal help right away to people who appear in court that day without a lawyer if their income is low enough. They give free legal advice and can help negotiate and settle issues, but they can’t take on a whole case or represent a person at trial.

An ex parte motion, sometimes called an emergency motion, is when you bring an urgent motion without notice to your partner. This means you don’t have to serve your documents on your partner before the judge hears the motion and makes a decision. The reason for not requiring service may be because of immediate safety issues or because the delay would likely lead to something serious happening. You can only bring this type of motion in limited situations. For example, if you feel there is an immediate risk that your partner will seriously harm you or your children, or leave the province or country with your children and not bring them back.

Exclusive possession is a court order that says only one partner can stay in, or return to, the home and the other partner isn’t allowed on the property. If there are children, usually the order also includes that the children are allowed on the property. The order is usually temporary. The court doesn't decide who owns the home or who rented it when deciding which partner can stay in it.

Family violence refers to the many different forms of abuse, neglect, or harm that an adult or child may experience in their close, personal relationships. It is also called domestic violence or partner abuse when one partner abuses the other partner.