Family Lawyers: directory of firms

Married spouses who are divorcing come under the Divorce Act, a federal statute that covers divorce itself, parenting and contact, child and spousal support, relocation, and the variation of existing orders. It also imposes duties on the parties and on their legal advisers, including duties around family dispute resolution, and it directs every parenting decision to the best interests of the child.

Everything else is provincial or territorial. Ontario runs its family justice system through the courts and services listed by the province, including the Mandatory Information Program, the Family Responsibility Office, the Office of the Children's Lawyer, Family Law Information Centres, online filing of family court documents and free mediation services. British Columbia's Family Law Act organises the same ground into parts on parentage, guardianship, parenting arrangements, property division, pension division, and child and spousal support, and defines family dispute resolution to include counselling, parenting coordination, mediation, arbitration and collaborative law.

Quebec is different again. The provincial government distinguishes de facto separation, legal separation from bed and board, and divorce, which it describes as the only way to end a marriage. Married and civil union spouses there share a family patrimony that includes the family home, furniture, vehicles and pension credits, and each is entitled to half of its value on separation, while couples in a de facto union are not covered by those partition rules at all. Quebec also offers free mediation sessions and requires parents to attend a parenting information session before applying to court.

Negotiation between lawyers suits couples who broadly agree and need the terms drafted properly. Mediation puts an impartial third party in the room to help you reach the terms yourselves; Ontario lists free mediation services connected to its family courts, and Quebec funds a number of mediation sessions for couples working out parenting and support. Neither mediator decides anything, so each of you still needs your own advice before signing.

Arbitration and collaborative practice sit between mediation and court. British Columbia's Family Law Act treats counselling, parenting coordination, mediation, arbitration and collaborative law together as family dispute resolution, and the Divorce Act places duties on parties and their legal advisers to consider resolving matters outside court where it is appropriate to do so.

Court is the route when there is a safety concern, when one side will not disclose their finances, or when a decision simply has to be imposed. It is slower and more public than the alternatives, and it is the path where the difference between a lawyer who does family work every day and one who does it occasionally shows most.

Most family lawyers bill by the hour against a retainer held in trust, and replenish it as the file runs. Some offer fixed fees for defined, predictable pieces of work such as an uncontested divorce, a simple separation agreement drafted from terms you have already agreed, or independent legal advice on a document someone else prepared. Ask which model is on offer for your matter, and what happens if a file that started as a fixed-fee agreement turns into a contested one.

The single biggest driver of the total is conflict, not paperwork. Disclosure fights, repeated interim motions and valuations of a business or a pension all add time. Court filing charges, mediators, arbitrators and valuators are billed on top of the lawyer's own account, so ask for those to be itemised separately in the engagement letter before work starts.

Family law is a licensed profession, and LokalMatch treats it as a directory rather than a marketplace: we don't sell requests for this service. You browse listings by city and area of practice and contact the firm yourself, and a listing is not a recommendation, a ranking or an assessment of anyone's suitability for your case.

Before you retain anyone, confirm their licence directly with the regulator for your province. The Law Society of Ontario publishes a Lawyer and Paralegal Directory showing licensing status, and also runs the Law Society Referral Service; the Law Society of British Columbia, the Law Society of Alberta and the Barreau du Quebec each publish their own lookup and complaints process. Everything on this page is general information, not legal or financial advice, and no page here can tell you what your own separation is worth.