This seminar will focus on simulated family law cases. As “counsel” for these cases, students will examine and apply legal principles, tactical, ethical and policy considerations, and rules of practice and professional responsibility to complete tasks and resolve problems that arise in the day-to-day work of family law practice. Throughout the seminar, students will be exposed to the interdisciplinary nature of family law. Working with complex fact patterns will assist students to develop advanced analytical skills and to understand how to work effectively with professionals such as mental health experts and business valuators to achieve optimal outcomes for clients.
Course or Seminar Category: Property Law
Administration of Civil Justice: Estate Litigation
This seminar will examine the substantive, procedural, and practical issues surrounding litigating certain claims by and against estates. Topics may include, depending upon available time, a detailed review of will challenges, dependant support claims, appointment and removal of estate trustees, passing of accounts, quantum meruit claims, and solicitor’s negligence in drafting wills. We will also examine the role of mandatory mediation and other negotiation techniques in resolving estate litigation. Students will also participate in a mock mediation exercise.
For each of these topics, we will explore how a client’s case is developed through the interaction of the case law, the Rules of Civil Procedure, the applicable statutes, the rules of evidence, and the psychology of the family unit.
Trusts
Trust law is an important legal discipline in its own right; however, as trusts can appear in other areas of law, including family law, corporate law, real estate, and estate planning and litigation, having a foundational knowledge of trusts can be of assistance to a lawyer no matter what area of law they practice. This course seeks to provide an understanding not only of what a trust is and how a trust is created, but also explore the legal relationship between the trustee, the beneficiary, and the property that is held in trust. The topics to be covered include the legal nature of trusts and how they are created, the reasons why trusts are created or come into existence by operation of law, the various kinds of trusts, including express trusts, purpose trusts, constructive trusts, and resulting trusts, as well as the legal relationship between the trustee and the beneficiaries, and the corresponding duties of the trustee and the rights the beneficiaries may exercise. The real-world use of trusts, and the implications and intersectionality of trusts with other areas of law, will be covered if time permits.
Securities Regulation
This is a four hour course that focuses on foundational and detailed coverage of the Ontario Securities Act, with the goals of both ensuring good understanding of the most important requirements of securities law, as well as the underlying policy objectives that those rules are intended to achieve. There will be reference to other provincial or international regulation where appropriate for comparison. Included in the detailed coverage are the definitions of key securities regulatory concepts such as “security”, “trade”, and “distribution”; requirements for primary and secondary distribution of securities; prospectus disclosure; exemptions and resale rules as well as recent changes here; continuous and timely disclosure obligations with particular reference to prohibitions on insider trading; mergers and acquisitions with particular reference to takeover bid legislation; primary and secondary market civil liability; enforcement law and policy.
Real Estate Transactions
This course will use the standard Ontario Agreement of Purchase and Sale as a baseline to examine the leading academic issues and legal questions regarding real estate transactions in Ontario. We will focus on understanding how a real estate transaction works, the rights and obligations of the buyer and the seller of real estate, and the roles and obligations of the professionals involved in these transactions: the realtors, lawyers and mortgage brokers.
Indigenous Peoples and Canadian Law
This is a unique Indigenous Peoples and Canadian Law course experience that covers a variety of topics through a focus on treaties and a practical experiential-learning based approach to Indigenous rights litigation. This course is designed to simulate real-world legal practice where collaboration is essential for success. Students will work in teams to analyze and prepare a complex legal case as part of a larger group advocacy project. Students who enjoy working with others and sharing ideas are more likely to find this course particularly rewarding.
The course will provide a survey of the procedural and substantive elements of litigating Indigenous rights from the perspective of a lawyer practicing exclusively in this area of law on behalf of First Nation clients and communities. Topics may include but are not limited to: Indigenous laws and governance systems; intersocietal law; history of treaties and treaty relationships; pre-existing Indigenous sovereignty and assumed Crown sovereignty; the honour of the Crown; the colonial doctrines of discovery and terra nullius; settler-colonialism and Indigenous resurgence.
This course consists of weekly lectures and in-class discussions. Evaluation methods encompass in-class quizzes, weekly reading assignments, participation and group work. This course also fulfills the prerequisite requirements for the Intensive Program in Indigenous Lands, Resources and Governments.
Indigenous Peoples and Canadian Law
The principal aim of this course is to develop critical understanding of those parts of Canadian constitutional law that pertain specifically to Indigenous peoples. Topics will include the notions of sovereignty and self-determination, relevant British imperial law, the honour of the Crown and the enforceable Crown obligations to which it gives rise, federal and provincial legislative authority, section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, Aboriginal rights and title, treaties and treaty rights, and Indigenous self-government (statutory and constitutional). The plan is for one class session, late in the term, to feature Toronto lawyers who represent or advise Indigenous clients, discussing practice-related issues.
The course will also acknowledge the reality, the coherence and the efficacy of Indigenous law. The plan is to invite an Indigenous law scholar to spend one class session early in the term introducing the students to an Indigenous legal order. But Indigenous law will figure somewhat less prominently in this section of the course than it does in some other sections, because the instructor, who is not Indigenous, has neither authority nor permission to pronounce on matters internal to any Indigenous legal order. Students whose primary interest is in Indigenous legal orders may prefer another section of this course, or may wish to supplement this course with a companion course whose specific focus is Indigenous law.
This course satisfies the prerequisite requirement for the Intensive Program in Aboriginal Lands, Resources and Governments. It may also be useful background for advanced seminars about Indigenous Peoples and the Law.
Family Law I
The course is intended to offer an overview of family law and to provide a foundation for later, more specialized seminars or research projects. It provides an introduction to some of the issues and problems relating to law and the family, focusing on three contexts: the creation of the family unit, the regulation of the ongoing family, and issues arising at family breakdown. Topics to be explored include marriage, reproduction, adoption, child care, family violence, child protection, divorce, property, support, domestic contracts, custody and access, and dispute resolution.
The course considers critical and policy-oriented perspectives. Throughout the course, we will examine the assumptions of gender, class, race, religion and sexual orientation on which family law is based, and consider the appropriateness of these assumptions.
The objective of the course is to provide a social, political and economic context within which legislative policies and judicial approaches can be understood and assessed. Particular attention will be paid to current provincial and federal law reform initiatives relating to the legal regulation of the family.
Family Law I
The course is intended to provide an introduction to the legal regulation of the family in Canadian and provincial law. The course is divided into six sections in order to facilitate an examination of the creation of the family unit, the regulation of the ongoing family, and the problems of family breakdown.
The first three classes present an introduction to various definitions of the family and provides relevant sociological and demographic context to the range of viable definitions. An overview of the seminal issues and tensions in family law will be canvassed. The introductory materials also cover the constitutional dimensions of family law.
The introductory materials are followed by a series of classes on the creation of the family. Several weeks of classes will cover adult relationship formation (including marriage) and the creation of parent-child relationships including adoption and reproductive technologies.
This is followed by a series of classes on the dissolution of the family. It is in this section that students will be exposed to the technicalities of divorce, along with topics such as the private ordering of dissolution (via mechanisms such as contract, mediation, and collaborative lawyering).
The fifth section covers the consequences of dissolution for adults by an examination of property division on dissolution, dealings with the matrimonial home, and spousal support.
The sixth and final section of the course deals with the consequences of family dissolution for children and covers issues such as custody and access, and child support.
In examining the rights and responsibilities of family members, we will explore questions such as: What is a family? What is a spouse? What is a parent? The answers to these questions are no longer as settled as they once seemed. We will consider the law’s answer to these questions, and the extent to which the legal regulation of the family is responding to changing and diverse family forms. Attention will be given to the issues of gender, race and class.
The course will be taught from a critical and policy-oriented perspective. The course emphasizes the role of law in defining and enforcing family arrangements, and the rights and responsibilities of family members. The course pays particular attention to law reform and policy choices in the legal regulation of the family in Ontario. The objective of the course is to provide a social, political and economic context within which legislative policies and judicial approaches can be understood and critically evaluated.
Wills and Estates
In Canada, there is an intergenerational transfer of wealth as baby boomers age and die. Consequently, both estate planning and estate administration are among the fast-growing areas of legal practice in our country. This is a course primarily on the law of succession to property on death. A case study will be used to discuss and apply knowledge. Some topics to be covered:
• dying without a Will
• property passing on death outside the estate
• formal validity of a Will
• capacity to make a Will and other estate planning transactions
• various limitations to making a Will and possible legal challenges
• steps involved in the administration of an estate
• high level impact of estate administration tax and income tax on estates
• spousal property rights on death and the support of the deceased’s dependants
• estate lawyer’s duties to a client
The course will be offered in a 3-hour in person class (first 2 hours of lecture recorded in accordance with Osgoode’s Lecture Recording Policy and last hour informal and unrecorded “workshop”) plus a 1-hour asynchronous pre-recorded Zoom lecture. By registering for this course, students acknowledge that short portions of their submitted assignments may be subsequently used in class, anonymously, for review and education purposes, in compliance with the Fair Dealing Guidelines for York Faculty and Staff.