Expand your skill set.
The National Family Law Arbitration Course is a 40-hour interactive course offering a comprehensive introduction to the arbitration of family law disputes in Canada, and includes optional six-hour pre-course programs for lawyers and mental health professionals interested in working as parenting coordinators.
The next iteration of the course begins in January 2024. It is open to lawyers, mental health professionals and financial professionals. Special programs on advanced issues in family law arbitration, parenting coordination and mediation-arbitration processes are being developed for later in 2024.
Courses in arbitration practice are available from organizations across Canada. While these courses are of a uniformly high quality, their primary focus tends to be the arbitration of employment, construction and corporate / commercial disputes. Family law disputes, however, have important differences that set them apart and demand a special approach to their management and resolution. Family law cases cannot be handled with the same off-the-shelf approach that might be used to resolve other civil cases.
The National Family Law Arbitration Course provides a complete introduction to the arbitration of family law disputes and the unique skills, processes and procedures these cases require. This course provides the opportunity to learn from senior family law lawyers with established arbitration practices in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario in an interactive remote learning environment. Superior court judges will address the role of the court in arbitration processes, and experienced mental health professionals will explore the impacts and implications of domestic violence. Download the syllabus for the 2024 course.
This course includes two optional pre-course programs for those interested in practicing as parenting coordinators, one directed to lawyers and taught by mental health professionals working in the area of family breakdown, and another directed to mental health professionals and taught by seasoned family law lawyers.
The course is provided over selected Fridays and Saturdays, with two optional pre-course programs offered before the course begins, The Basics of Psychology for Family Law Lawyers and The Basics of Family Law for Mental Health Professionals. All instructional days begin at 10:30am and end at 5:30pm eastern.
Learn more about the course.
Register now for the 2024 course!
To register, download the registration form and follow the instructions for payment.
For information about the course, please contact our administrator, Marcy McCabe, at NFLACoffice@gmail.com.
Organizers and steering committee
The organizers of the National Family Law Arbitration Course are John-Paul Boyd KC of John-Paul Boyd Arbitration Chambers in Alberta and British Columbia, Lawrence Pinsky KC of Taylor McCaffrey LLP in Manitoba, and Lorne Wolfson of Torkin Manes in Ontario.
The members of the steering committee for the inaugural course in 2021 were Wayne Barkauskas KC, Professor Rachel Birnbaum, Tom Dart, Herschel Fogelman, Aaron Franks, Cheryl Goldhart, Stephen Grant, Arlene Henry KC, Alf Mamo, Danny Melamed, Doug Moe KC, Krysta Ostwald KC, Eugene Raponi KC, Brahm Siegel, and Bryan Smith. Much thanks to everyone involved.
Stay up to date!
Enter your email address below to receive information about the National Family Law Arbitration Course, the registration for the 2024 course, and the status of our special programs.
I am a professional accountant with a very strong interest and significant experience with family law arbitration. Am I able to access this training? Absent that, am I able to provide feedback to this training?
You can! The course is open to anyone who is interested.
Registration for the 2022 course is now open, Rebecca. We’d love to have you.
I missed this registration. Kindly let me know when registration re-opens. Thank you.
Registration is now open, Muftau! Please join us.
Hi would this help me to understand family law and make me ready to attend my trial without a lawyer?
I’m sorry but no, this course won’t give you what you need. It’s intended for legal and mental health professionals who already have some familiarity with the law and the legal system.
Is there a way to register electronically?
There is! You can email your completed registration form to Nona at the email address provided on the form. Unfortunately, we can only accept payment by cheque and that’ll need to be mailed in.
Is there a plan to offer this course in 2023? If so, will it be offered by Zoom again?
Hi Andrew. At this point, we’re not sure if we’ll be running the course again in 2023 or if we’ll wait until 2024. (The last iteration of the course ran in October and November 2022.) When we do offer the course, it will certainly be by Zoom.
Keep an eye on the course website for updates.
Hi Andrew. The dates for the next edition of the course are now set and start in February 2024.
Is there somewhere we can sign up that will notify us if and when the course will run again ?
A notification sign-up is a great idea. I’ll look into that. In the meantime, new dates for the next iteration of the course have just been announced. Click on “The Course” for details!
And that notification sign-up is now available on the landing page of the NFLAC website!
Are counsellors legally allowed to arbitrate in BC? I thought only lawyers were given that power.
As a matter of fact, they can as long as they are members of the College of Psychologists or the College of Social Workers! Section 5(2) of the Family Law Act Regulation says who can and can’t work as an arbitrator in British Columbia. Section 6(1) says who can and can’t work as a parenting coordinator, which involves an important arbitration component, and includes members of the BC Association of Clinical Counsellors, the College of Psychologists and the College of Social Workers.