Essential strategies for legal professionals to manage toxic dynamics, court expectations, and difficult clients.
High-conflict parenting matters often demand a disproportionate amount of time, resources, and emotional energy. These disputes are not only costly and draining for clients but also place a significant burden on the court system. High-conflict parenting disputes require special considerations to ensure you are putting your client’s interests forward in a way that is most effective. As family law counsel, your role is to advocate zealously for your client—without exacerbating conflict or misusing court resources. Striking this balance requires thoughtful, strategic advocacy.
In this session, hear directly from the Honourable Madam Justice Melanie Kraft, Bill Eddy (High Conflict Institute), and experienced family law practitioners about how to navigate these challenging cases effectively and ethically. Topics will include:
Oral and Written Advocacy: Tips for being concise, focused, and persuasive in your written materials and court submissions.
Professionalism: Strategies for maintaining civility between counsel, even when your clients are in deep conflict.
Working with Self-Represented Litigants: How to communicate effectively, respectfully, and in line with your obligations.
Duties to the Court: Understanding your responsibilities when the other side is unrepresented, including how to assist the court without compromising your client’s position.
Managing Client Expectations: Best practices for communicating with your own client—balancing transparency, strategy, and the importance of not fueling the conflict.
Understanding High-Conflict Personalities: How to recognize high-conflict behaviors, set boundaries, use structured communication strategies (such as BIFF responses), and reduce escalation while still advocating effectively for your client.
Toronto Lawyers Association
For more than 135 years, the Toronto Lawyers' Association, located within the Courthouse Library, has represented the interests of lawyers practising in the City of Toronto. The association was founded to support its members in three key areas: Knowledge, Advocacy, and Community. To uphold these pillars, the association offers a year-round mix of online and in-person education programs for lawyers, hosts both free and paid events to foster in-person networking, and submits advocacy pieces on behalf of its members to the Ontario bench and bar, all levels of government, and the broader public.
Counsel, Office of the Children’s Lawyer, Ministry of the Attorney General
Christine is Counsel with the Office of the Children’s Lawyer (OCL), Ministry of the Attorney General. Christine articled at the OCL in 2012–2013. From 2013–2023, Christine worked as in-house counsel with the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto. While in law school, Christine was a caseworker at Parkdale Community Legal Services and summered at the College Park Duty Counsel office with Legal Aid Ontario. At the OCL, Christine supervises panel agents across the province on family, and child protection cases. She also co-manages the OCL’s secure treatment and older youth programs. Christine is a member of the organizing committee for the annual Walsh Family Law Moot and Negotiation Competition (AFCC-O). Christine also sits on the boards of the Osgoode Hall Alumni Association and New Circles Community Services in Toronto. Since 2022, Christine has been a cast member of the Lawyer Show, the annual musical fundraiser for Toronto’s Nightwood Theatre.
Family Lawyer
Julie is a family lawyer and certified mediator and arbitrator who has been practising law since 2002. In 2008, she started Stanchieri Family Law, a boutique law firm in Toronto that focuses exclusively in the area of family law. Today, Julie continues to run her own practice and represent clients with highly complex legal needs related to their marriage, divorce or separation.
Ontario Superior Court of Justice
Madam Justice Melanie Kraft graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1994. Upon completion of her articles with Epstein Cole LLP, she was admitted to the Bar of Ontario. She practiced family law exclusively with the firm, becoming a partner in 2001. Justice Kraft’s practice covered a broad range of family law issues and involved various dispute resolution mechanisms, including the negotiation of domestic contracts in complex financial matters and acting as counsel in contentious parenting, support, and property disputes. Given Justice Kraft’s long-held commitment to improving the public’s access to justice, she has supported and participated in programs developed to support this objective. This includes her past participation in the Intensive Poverty Law Programme at Parkdale Community Legal Service, her service as Duty Counsel at the Ontario Court of Justice, and, most recently, her service both as a Dispute Resolution Officer and as Advice Settlement Counsel at the Superior Court of Justice. Justice Kraft is an Adjunct Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, where she co-teaches Family Law. She has obtained certificates in mediation from both the Collaborative Decision Resource Centre in Boulder, Colorado, and the Program of Instruction for Lawyers at Harvard Law School. In addition to spending family time with her husband, Mark, and their three children, Justice Kraft has been actively involved in parents’ associations at her children’s elementary schools and has also served on the board of her children's post-secondary schools.
Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, High Conflict Institute
Bill Eddy is a pioneer in high-conflict personality theory and one of the most influential voices in modern conflict resolution. As a therapist, lawyer, mediator, and bestselling author of more than 20 books, he developed widely used tools including The CARS Method®, BIFF Response®, EAR Statements™, and the New Ways® series. His work is used across workplaces, courts, healthcare, government, and human services around the world. Bill’s integration of mental health and legal expertise continues to shape HCI’s research-driven methods for managing all levels of conflict. He also co-hosts the podcast, It’s All Your Fault!
