If you’re like me, bankruptcy sits on the periphery of your knowledge, nothing you read ‘sticks’ and you don’t have a clue what to actually do if it happens in your family law file. Suddenly, priorities shift, timelines freeze, and your client’s strategy gets swallowed by a system you don’t understand (…before even contemplating reading different Court Notices).

But we’re now in a period of real uncertainty, rising cost of living with stories of housing insecurity, high personal debt and layoffs. I felt I needed a CPD that would walk through what it’s like – and what to do – when OP or your client threaten’s or actually goes through with a bankruptcy or bankruptcy proposal. This is that CPD.

There’s a reason bankruptcy makes family lawyers nervous

It’s not just the legislation, or the specialized court process, or the grab-bag of caselaw. It’s the real risk of missteps – not knowing who to talk to, waiving rights unknowingly, missing deadlines, or failing to protect claims. We know family law, not insolvency law, and yet here you are, stuck navigating the involvement of a trustee, motions to stay, discharge orders, other creditors… all this besides the case law on the impact of family law.

This Program is Different

To create a roadmap that I could refer back to whenever a family law file collided with bankruptcy, I went right to the top and asked Bob Klotz if he’d be willing to have this pointed conversation, including: 

• • Learning the signs it’s coming, for our client or opposing party
  • Whom you can talk to (or not talk to)
  • Timelines and deadlines
  • Disclosure you can ask for
  • Are we family lawyers competent to advise on any of these issues, file a claim, oppose a discharge or move to lift a stay? 
  • Doing right for our client: support priority, 1^st execution creditor, equity of exoneration, constructive/resulting trust, pre-bankruptcy securing order
  • Partition and sale of a jointly owned home
  • Challenging the bankruptcy or the bankrupt’s discharge 
  • Who gets the bankrupt spouse’s right to claim equalization?
  • Money in your trust account
  • Pensions, RRSPs and other Financial Statement line-items
  • When to call in a bankruptcy lawyer

We’re going to discuss what you can, can’t, should and shouldn’t do.

And we want your questions to incorporate in the discussion if you have them. Just email: cpd@disclosureclinic.com

About this CPD Program

Details:

• Date: Friday May 30, 2025 @ 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. EST
• Format: Zoom
• Registration Fee: $125.00 + HST per registrant, 10% discount where 3 or more registrants
• Created for: Family Law lawyers, mediators/arbitrators, judges, articling/LPP students
• CPD: Eligible for 1.5 hours of LSO Substantive CPD credits.
• Recording: A recording of the session will be provided to registrants
• Materials: Materials and a transcript will be provided

Presenters:

Robert (Bob) Klotz, BSc, JD, LLM, practices insolvency law and commercial litigation in downtown Toronto with Klotz Associates, Barristers and Solicitors. He is the author of Bankruptcy, Insolvency and Family Law, 2^nd ed. (3^rd ed. forthcoming, 2028).  He proposed an amendment to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (BIA) in 1993 to create a new support enforcement remedy in bankruptcy, inspired and led a national lobbying campaign, testified in Parliament, and advised the federal government, resulting in a successful legislative change in 1997 to re-cast the treatment of support in bankruptcy.  He has identified and popularized ancient equitable remedies that have been adopted in Canadian family law jurisprudence; proposed and developed case law to protect equalization claims against pensions and RRSPs, culminating in the Schreyer decision which he argued (and lost!) in the SCC; and has presented numerous papers and articles across Canada and throughout Ontario, to audiences of family lawyers, bankruptcy lawyers, judges, and academics.  He is currently poised to initiate two new lobbying campaigns, one to amend the Ontario Family Law Act and the other to amend the BIA.

Shmuel Stern, family law lawyer (2003) and founder of Disclosure Clinic, an innovative limited scope service assisting litigants, lawyers, and mediators confronted with all issues touching family law financial disclosure. Shmuel created the Court Calculator, runs the @corollaryrelief Twitter feed and more recently is website editor of courtnoticefinder.ca. In addition to Disclosure Clinic, Shmuel practices family law in Ohio where he was called in 2021, and is trying to piece together what each jurisdiction can learn from the other. 

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