Episode 96: Child-Centred Family Law: A Call for Collaboration
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Episode 96: Child-Centred Family Law: A Call for Collaboration
Broadcast Date: November 7, 2024
SUMMARY
In this episode, David Lazzam hosts a compelling discussion with Vincent Ramsay, a retired family law attorney, and Nicholas Bala, a professor specializing in family and children’s law. Together, they delve into the history of Canada’s adversarial family law system and its profound impacts on families and children. Their engaging dialogue highlights the contrasting roles of “peacemaker” and “hired gun” lawyers, while offering educational and policy reform suggestions to promote a more collaborative, child-focused approach to family law. The episode also provides concrete advice for practitioners and policymakers aiming to reshape the family justice landscape.
Guests
- Professor Nicholas Bala, William R. Lederman Distinguished University Professor, Faculty of Law, Queen’s University
- Vincent Ramsay, Retired Lawyer
Host
- David Lazzam, Articling Student, CIAJ
BIOGRAPHIES
- Professor Nicholas Bala, William R. Lederman Distinguished University Professor, Faculty of Law, Queen’s University
Nicholas (Nick) Bala is an internationally recognized expert on issues related to children, youth and families in the justice system, and teaches in that area as well as Contract Law at Queen’s University. Prof. Bala is an expert on Family and Children’s Law, with research focussing on issues related to parental separation issues including parental alienation and relocation; children in the family courts, including role of child’s counsel and judicial interviewing of children; spousal abuse and its effects on children; children in the criminal courts; and access to family justice. He has published extensively in journals in law, medicine, psychology and social work. His work is often quoted by all levels of court in Canada, including the Supreme Court and courts of appeal across the country, and he has also been cited by courts in the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.
- Vincent Ramsay, Retired Lawyer
Vincent Ramsay retired in 2022 after 28 years of practice as a family law lawyer in Kingston, Ontario. He represented both parent clients and child clients, the latter as Agent for the Office of the Children’s Lawyer. He is a longtime member of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC – an international, multidisciplinary family law organization) and was a founding member of the local Kingston group of the Ontario Chapter of AFCC. His contributions to Ontario’s Family Justice System have been recognized at the provincial level by the Distinguished Service Award from AFCC Ontario, and at the local level by the Lou Tepper Award of Excellence from the Frontenac Law Association. For several years he has been researching, writing and speaking about the need to transform Canada’s Family Justice System, as too often parents and children are harmed by the adversarial litigation process, which is antithetical to the promotion of the best interests of the children. Most significantly, Vince is the proud grandfather of one-year-old, Heather!
- David Lazzam, articling student, CIAJ
David is CIAJ’s 2024-25 articling student, having recently graduated from the University of Ottawa Common Law program. He previously obtained a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Political Studies from Queen’s University. While in law school, he conducted legal research pertaining to law reform for groups such as the Ottawa-Ecojustice Environmental Law Clinic and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, and served as the Canadian Bureau Chief of the international legal news site JURIST.
RELATED DOCUMENTATION
Article: Ending the Harm to Parents and Children from Ontario’s Family Justice System by Transforming Family Law Culture: Reflections of a Family Law Lawyer – Vincent Ramsay (2024 CanLIIDocs 2300, 2024-07-01)
Article: Ethical Duties of Lawyers for Parents Regarding Children of Clients: Being a Child-Focused Family Lawyer – Nicholas Bala, Patricia Hebert & Rachel Birnbaum (The Canadian Bar Review, 2027)
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