Finding Divorce Lawyers In Vancouver BC
All practicing lawyers in British Columbia are members of the Law Society of British Columbia. Many lawyers are also members of the Canadian Bar Association and its British Columbia Branch. Lawyers along with judges and court clerks are Officers of the Court and as officers of the court and as members of the Law Society, lawyers are held to high standards of conduct. The website of the Law Society of British Columbia is an excellent resource for people who are thinking about hiring a lawyer in Vancouver or have hired a lawyer in Vancouver.
When you hire a divorce lawyer, you can expect your vancouver divorce lawyer to provide you with legal advice, take your instructions and fearlessly advance your claim. If you are litigating, your divorce lawyer is like your sword and shield, assertively advancing your claim, while protecting you from the adversarial aspects of litigation.
Some divorce lawyers are also collaborative divorce lawyers and have taken collaborative divorce training with the Continuing Legal Education Society.
The collaborative divorce process brings together family lawyers, divorce coaches, child specialists and financial advisors to help divorcing couples reach a divorce settlement without going to court. This process provides the family with privacy and greatly reduces the financial and emotional costs of divorce.
Some divorce lawyers are also accredited family law mediators. Lawyers who are accredited family law mediators, must have satisfied the qualifications of the Credentials Committee of the Law Society and have completed additional training in family law mediation. Family law mediators do not act for either spouse as a lawyer in the usual solicitor-client relationship. Instead family law mediators provide mediation services to both spouses, rather than providing independent legal advise to either spouse. Both spouses retain their own family lawyers to provide them with independent legal advise during the mediation process and to execute the certificates of independent legal advice when executing the separation agreement.
One way to find a divorce lawyer, collaborative divorce lawyer or family law mediator is to through The Canadian Bar Association, British Columbia Branch’s Lawyer Referral Service. This service keeps a roster of subscribing lawyers in your area, a list of the areas of law each lawyer practices in and a list of the languages each lawyer speaks. Call 604.687.3221 in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, or elsewhere in British Columbia, call 1.800.663.1919.
JP Boyd’s BC Family Law Resource provides links to websites maintained by family lawyers, collaborative lawyers and mediators in Vancouver, the Lower Mainland and the Fraser Valley. The list is not complete but it is very comprehensive.
When looking for a divorce lawyer, keep in mind that not all lawyers practice family law and divorce law. Given how complex family law can be, you will want to focus on lawyers who focus on family law exclusively and that family law is the whole of their practice. If you want to have choices about which divorce process you will be using, then look for a divorce lawyer who provides all three types of services: divorce litigation, collaborative divorce and family law mediation services.
At Marla Gilsig, Family Law and Mediation, our focus is exclusively family law, and we offer divorce litigation, collaborative divorce and family law mediation services. For more information, visit us at www.gilsig.ca or contact us at [email protected]
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