I recently attended a conference put on by the British Columbia Trial Lawyers Association in Vancouver regarding family law. At this conference, ‘A Rock and a Hard Place – Complex Issues in Family Law Practice’, I was on one of the panels. My panel, which consisted of Penny Lipsack from the Office of the Ministry of the Attorney General and myself, dealt with the law concerning international child custody and parental cross border child abduction. During my presentation I discussed the law regarding how jurisdiction in cross border child custody cases could be resolved, and I also talked about some of the recent British Columbia cases which dealt with this issue. I also discussed the law regarding international parental child abduction and some recent cases regarding that area of the law, and concluded by discussing some steps that could be taken to stabilize the situation in cases in which there is a potential for a parental child abduction to occur. The conference as a whole was very useful and stimulating with numerous interesting and knowledgeable presenters.
Mediating Cases under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child AbductionWhen we think of the term ‘child abduction’, we often think about children being kidnapped by strangers. However, in many cases, children are taken abroad or kept in another country by one parent (called the “abducting parent”) without the permission of their other parent (the “left-behind parent”).
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Designated Paralegal/Legal Coach services for Self-Represented LitigantsNavigating and understanding a family law case with full representation can be daunting; now imagine doing this on your own. This is what approximately 40% of British Columbian’s are currently having to do in their own family law case.
Kitsilano Family Law: Reflections as a Summer StudentMy name is Isa Nafissi, and I am a second-year law student at the Peter Allard School of Law at UBC. This past summer, I had the opportunity to work as a summer student at Kitsilano Family Law, where I gained hands-on experience by supporting the lawyers on various cases.