As soon as one of the following three circumstances has occurred: the other spouse has committed adultery, the other spouse has committed cruelty, or the spouses have separated. As soon as one of these circumstances has occurred, a spouse can commence an application for divorce. If separation is used as the ground to obtain a divorce, the spouses need to have been separated for at least one year before a judge will grant a divorce order.

Mediation is a process whereby the spouses jointly retain a professional mediator to help them reach an agreement that they are both comfortable with. Usually, only the spouses, without their lawyers, will meet with the mediator. The role of the mediator is to help the spouses arrive at their own agreement. The mediator’s role is not to give an opinion or force one spouse to accept the other spouse’s terms. It is certainly not the role of the mediator to give legal advice.

Even when the spouses decide to mediate their issues, it is most advisable for each spouse to have a lawyer provide him or her with legal advice.

A dispute resolution officer (DRO) is a lawyer who is a member in good standing of the Law Society of Upper Canada, has practiced primarily in the field of family law for a minimum of ten years, and has been appointed to assist the judges and the court system. At Toronto’s divorce court—the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, the DRO meets with separated spouses before their case proceeds to a hearing before a judge to attempt to resolve their case, or at least to narrowly define the issues and create a timetable to proceed to a hearing.

DRO’s are typically involved in cases where one spouse is applying to the court to change a child support order or to change the parenting plan. The programme has been very successful. Approximately two-thirds of the cases are settled by the DRO without proceeding before a judge. Those cases that do proceed to a hearing before a judge have benefited by the DRO assisting the parties in defining the issues and ensuring that the proper evidence is submitted to the judge.