Hi! I’m Chad Robinson and on this episode of the Practical Broker podcast, I had the pleasure of chatting with Fred Huard and Marie Roy. They are 2 family lawyers based in Ottawa, they are both bi-lingual and very passionate about their craft.
Together they share amazing insights into how customers, clients and the general public, when faced with this difficult situation, can get through this as best and quickly as possible.
Fred Huard has been in family law for over 15 years and he just called to the bar about 1½ years ago.
Show Notes
1.02 – What was it about family law that made you so attracted to it?
Marie says that she always wanted to find a career in something that she could help people in. Science was not her forte so she could not be a doctor. So the next best thing for her was to become a lawyer.
When she started practicing Family law she realized that she could impact people’s lives positively and bring clarity to the difficult situations they were experiencing.
1.49 – How did you get into family law? What was your journey because you do families, real estate and wills, so you do a couple of things?
Fred says he initially had a variety of files he was handling such as civil litigation matters, some wills, and estate stuff. There was a lot of family law that needed to be done and clients just kept coming.
It’s a scenario where people have a variety of needs at different stages of their lives. Yeah, you know people might just be getting into a relationship. Anytime there’s an imbalance in terms of, you know, the assets that the respective parties might have, they might want to consider entering into a cohabitation agreement.
That same agreement can turn into a marriage contract. And then sadly, sometimes the relationships don’t work out and then you have to figure out what to do about it. I’ve been doing this for quite a while and I try to stay very level headed irrespective of the situation I find myself in.
3.52 – In the mortgage industry we are part as a therapist to them and I am sure you guys are that to a bigger degree than what we experience?
Fred says sometimes few people will come to us and they need to confide in someone about what they’re going through.
Yeah, so a lot of that is, is really lining them up in terms of, you know, what’s relevant to our specific area of practice and also guiding them to other professionals when they need that help.
Sometimes they need an accountant, sometimes they need help in dealing with your difficult issues. Sometimes it might be issues that involve parenting or issues, psychological challenges.
So it’s really tough to listen a lot. You have to listen, you must avoid rushing to conclusions as you help people think through their own issues
Marie says that sometimes clients don’t look at the big picture, they just see the problem in front of them and don’t try to see past it. So she tries to help them to see exactly the bigger picture in where this should be going towards and if there are children involved, not forget about them and what they’re feeling.
Fred says he often asks his clients, How do you see yourself five years from now after this divorce?
What does that look like and they are like oh, blah, blah, blah,
I’m like, okay, so does this really matter that he went out with this girl, right? Okay. It sucks. Yes, yeah. But, you know, you gotta think, farther down the road.
Fred also talks about the Department of Justice’s review of family law to see what they can do to improve things. They are focused on moving away from this custody access approach and looking at parenting time so so that family law files are not focused around finding a winner and a loser in terms of the dispute.
So it’s a more holistic approach where you were saying with the child or children but the parents are separating but before the parents separated and this was a family and they know that these kid’s needs were looked after by two parents living in one home.
Now you have to take those two parents with them in two different homes, two different settings, and then try to see like, see what would be in the best interests of these children in terms of sharing time and apportioning the assets of the family too.
So that’s a very interesting change, I find at this point where, you know, we, Family Law Lawyers have to look more opportunities for solutions to bring during the conflict.
7.17 – Aren’t they mandating now that the clients look through all the different alternatives between mediation and collaborative law. I think there are about 4 or 5 steps that they try to put people through now?
Marie says, if you decide to start proceeding in court, they’ll mandatory you go to MIT, which is a session where they inform you about the other type of things that you could do in mediation and all of that, but it’s not you’re not obligated to take part in mediation.
7.58 – What are the other options that are available besides mediation?
Marie says they also do forward meetings 8.33, however, this service is not offered by all law firms. Basically the lawyers and clients meet together in one room but you can also have two rooms.
So if they don’t want to be in the same room, they don’t have to, but at least there’s more of a dialogue program instead of exchanging tons of letters. You get things going forward quickly. It is a big day or half a day, but it gets things done a lot quicker.
8.55 – I ask for more clarity on the forward meeting?
If the parties are able to be in the same room, there’s a dialogue that happens and the lawyers are present so that when the emotions get too high, the lawyers are there to get back to the major issue, right. A legal issue.
What are we talking about? We’re talking about two bucks are talking about thousand dollars, like there’s a difference, right?
And to bring it back to the more logical and less emotional to find a solution. Again, we represent our clients so there’s sometimes that barrier so that’s why people prefer having a mediator their help with the discussion.
22.04 – So you guys see all aspects because you have a real estate practice too, right? We see couples of any age coming together and getting a house and we talked a lot about prenups cohabitation agreements. What do you guys how do you guys deal with these issues?
Fred says sometimes they’re forced into it. Maybe the parent has decided to give them like $50,000 towards the purchase of a home. So let’s say that the parents honestly want to make sure that the fact that $50,000 stays on their side of the family then they might want to ask their son or their daughter whichever may be depending on the circumstances to have a cohabitation agreement to make sure that if this the parties ever separated or if one of the parties ever dies, then we know how to treat that not like a gift, right?
We want to make sure you that doesn’t sort of become commingled into family assets and then become this is a subject of the dispute, right? Because I think it’s a big myth, right. People say when you talk about cohabitation agreements, they think, oh, if you want that, it’s you don’t love me
Marie says she has had that question asked to her, how they’re bringing up to my partner?
Because people feel that you think we’re going to break up; we’re not going to end up together.
And I think if you have that conversation in the way that you’re not trying to be mean or aggressive or trying to say like, I know you’re going to try to steal my money, but it’s to protect both parties in one way and it’s not a contract that is only written on one part.
That other party is going to have a chance to review it with a lawyer and make changes to make sure that their wishes are also protected. So I think it’s just to give those keywords to the parties to make sure that nobody gets offended and understand the basics of it. I think it’s more and more popular. I see it more for clients that have a second relationship, right, that went through a first separation
26.01 – So what is the difference between cohabitation and prenup
Marie says a cohabitation agreement is going to become your marriage contract if you decide to marry, nowadays some people decide not to get married.
When you are married couple you have different rights and obligations as well. So it’s important to know the difference. So when you do a co-habitation, a lot of people like you said are not going to get married right away and they’re going to move in together in a house and five years they’re going to get married.
And for those that will not get married, there are still some rights and obligation and if you want to protect your assets, it’s important to do it before you get married because that might be in five years and it may be too late to be separate before and
Fred says it also depends on when you’re entering into your cohabitation agreement or marriage contract for in terms of, let’s say, as two young people that don’t yet have kids sometimes you both want to exclude an asset from the equalization in the event of death or separation at a later date.
So that can be a very simple thing, but you wouldn’t want to put in very intricate clauses about trying to predetermine spousal support of these things but it’s very complicated because you don’t know what the family constellation will look like in 15 to 20 years’ time. So you have to be really careful to tread lightly and take a measured approach
What I sometimes see in these cohabitation agreements for marriage contracts is lawyers and clients wanting to cover to too many areas. So sometimes you’ll see like a spousal support waiver where the party doesn’t yet have kids and are very young.
They don’t know what will happen in the future. Though that we can imagine that, let’s say, parties enter into such an agreement with a waiver of spousal support, and both parties are very young, they haven’t had kids and then parties eventually separate 20 years later, they’ve got two or three kids and one of the parties is earning considerably more than the other, you can create situations that are very difficult now that would sort of lend itself to a potential challenge in front of the court.
Where people will say, well, no like that, that shouldn’t have been the parties can couldn’t reasonably contemplate what would happen in the future.
30.57 – If a couple wants to get a cohabitation agreement, how long does it take? What can they expect? What would it cost roughly?
Marie says it depends on the parties, she has had co-habitation that went rapidly.
Everybody really knew what they wanted. They had already talked basically about everything. It also depends if you’re doing the independent legal advice, or if you’re drafting it because usually one partner and his lawyers are going to draft and they send it to our office, then we just review our client give our advice and then make changes or sign as is if that’s what the client wants.
So it’s very much we have an hourly rate because it can go from a small amount to such a bigger bill, depending on how much time we actually spend on this.
She also uses questionnaires, which she finds very helpful because sometimes the client will know exactly what we need. The client can simply do it at home with the questionnaire. They can write what they’re thinking is important to protect and what they’re looking for.
So when she gets the questionnaire back, she can just give the client a draft or a review which she finds very efficient and cost-effective.
33.10 – You guys have dealt with both sides of the fence, happy couples and couples that are amicable with splitting up, but also the really contentious ones. If a client is listening to this, and they are going through some domestic violence, or it’s a really difficult situation, what’s the first step? What should they do? Or what do you recommend to do for clients, like in that situation?
Marie says legally if it’s abusive, the court might be the right answer because you can prepare motion documents if you need one party to leave the home right you can have a session at home and not be in that kind of environment where you’re not sure if it’s going to be abusive and things like that
Fred also adds that communication is very important, a parent who is living through difficult times with a spouse can discuss it with the school principal, doctor, teacher, psychologist and others that can help.
We have an obligation to report if we find that, that there’s a situation That’s clearly very violent and dangerous then we would do would have to report it. So sometimes people think, oh, I don’t know where to turn to, but I think the important thing is really to have the courage to discuss it and not let situations continue on for long periods of time.
Marie says in the experiences that she has had, her client had already had the courage to go find those services that could help them in their personal life. And they were the ones telling them that they should seek legal advice to get out of this situation and know what your rights are.
36.14 – How do you find those services? Is there a website or an organization in Ottawa that can help direct people?
Marie says that usually, family doctors will refer them to different psychologists
Fred says that sometimes there’s a bit of a stigma, people say I don’t want to appear weak, I don’t want to admit that I’m going to see a psychologist, I don’t want to admit that I need to reach out to you know, third parties for help.
Sometimes in clients that are engaged in professional fields where they’re in a position of authority, sometimes they have a lot of difficulties admitting that they’re, going through hard times and they need help
47.26 – How does somebody choose a family law lawyer? How do you decide who’s a good lawyer, a bad lawyer?
Marie says when you have a lawyer who’s not a good fit with their client, it leads to clashes and it becomes very difficult to move on.
She believes that it is important to have an open dialogue with your lawyer and if you have an issue, it is better to discuss it so that it is not on your mind all the time.
She reiterates that communication and open dialogue is very important. She usually has an initial telephone call or meeting to see if it’s a good fit. She will give you her advice or the way she thinks or the way I want to approach this
And you need to the client needs to be comfortable in the whole process. Of course, they’re not going to always agree with you because they don’t know everything or sometimes they’ll see every different scenario that could happen. She believes the 10 minutes phone call just to see the personality or just come into the office to have that initial meeting is very beneficial.
Fred says that the law society offers a lawyer referral service and you can get a 30 min free consultation.
His office is involved in that service and they get a lot of calls from potential clients through that avenue. A lot of clients are essentially returning clients, people that have dealt with us in the past and they they’ve enjoyed the service they’ve received.
Another source of referrals is referrals from other law firms who find that they’re able to work with us and then they send us clients and they say please help us with this particular client.
56.46 – Is there any potential advice to young couples that are just getting in that situation or starting a marriage?
Marie says to be open to having the conversation, don’t be offended right away Nowadays, I think it’s more and more popular, but there’s still that stigma to it. And I think it’s important to keep an open mind to talk to your partner about it and to keep it respectful. And don’t get stuck in your emotion, even though it’s very difficult and I can understand that, but talk to the professionals that could help you see,
Resources
Chad’s email:
chad@bestinterest.ca
Fred’s email:
frederic@huardlaw.ca
Marie’s email:
marie@huardlaw.ca
Best Interest Mortgage’s Website:
https://bestinterest.ca/
Huard Law’s Website:
http://huardlaw.ca/english/
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