Lawyer Monthly Magazine - September 2021 Edition

into the most appropriate system that can meet the parties’ needs. In addition, our courts have implemented strict timelines regarding the filing of materials. This is a concerted effort to ensure that scheduled matters proceed in a fair and timely manner. As with most new processes, there is a significant learning curve. Throughout the course of the pandemic, judges, courthouse support staff, lawyers, and clients have had to adapt to ever changing technology and lengthier wait times. What do you feel the legal sector could do to ease the burden of the ongoing backlog on the courts and the families affected? Lawyers can play a major role in this. We all need to work together in reviewing settlement options with our clients, helping them focus on the big picture, giving them confidence in the system, and advising to proceed with litigation only when necessary. The work that you do not see is that, outside of the courthouse, our family law bar is actively working on settling cases and supporting families. Our work is deeply rooted in the law and jurisprudence, but at the end of the day, we recognise that we are helping real families who make up the fabric of our society. Quite often our clients’ goals and interests are not “being right in law” or “winning”, but rather supporting their children’s needs, ensuring their financial stability, and reducing their stress. Litigation is a useful tool that is sometimes needed, but first and foremost, lawyers must support their clients in finding alternatives to court in order to achieve their goals and interests. One of the best ways to do so is to identify the issues at the outset of a file, direct clients to agencies that can provide support to them (i.e. psychologists, parenting experts, coaches) and encourage them to focus on the future after the initial trauma of separation. 15 Laura H. Bruyer & Tiffany S. Stokes Partners of Bruyer & Mackay LLP Suite 201, 11611 107 Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta T5H 0P9 T: +1 780 425 9777 E: l.bruyer@bruyermackay.ca ; t.stokes@bruyermackay.ca www.bruyermackay.ca Partners of Bruyer & Mackay Bruyer & Mackay LLP is one of the largest family law firms in Alberta. We pride ourselves on being the leader in family law and offering superior client service and representation. We offer a breadth of family law services including litigation, arbitration, collaborative family law, as well as supporting services. In addition to the services we provide our clients, we consider ourselves “ambassadors” of family law. We want the public, the judiciary, members of the profession, and those considering law as a career to know that family law is an extraordinary, challenging, and critical area of law. Family law touches upon almost every other area of law – corporate/ commercial, real estate, immigration, criminal, human rights and bankruptcy (to name a few) are all areas that impact our cases. You need to be a highly skilled and competent lawyer to do an effective job for your clients and to uphold the administration of justice. You also have to be able to work well with different personalities and support clients who are often in crisis. Our lawyers publish papers, contribute to continuing education efforts, teach as sessional instructors at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law, sit on boards, and provide countless hours of pro bono work. We work to elevate the status of family law. We are striving to make Bruyer & Mackay a “one stop shop” so that clients, who are going through perhaps one of the most difficult times in their lives, can benefit from a lawyer knowledgeable in separation and divorce and a firm that can also handle their real estate transactions, as well as will and estate planning. In time, we hope to team up with counselling services to ensure clients are fully supported from the outset of their separation.