Do you ever find yourself preparing pleadings? If so, LESA’s upcoming Drafting Pleadings, Affidavits, and Orders program has plenty to offer you.
You’ll discover best practices, review current case law, and explore the role that pleadings play in framing your case with this seminar that brings together a broad range of perspectives (from the civil litigator and family law practitioner to a Queen’s Bench Justice).
As seminar chair James Kindrake explains, the program takes a “big picture approach” to the topic of pleadings and will benefit civil litigators across all practice areas. To show you what the program is all about, we asked James a few questions. Here’s what he had to say about Drafting Pleadings, Affidavits, and Orders.
Why will this program benefit attendees? What will they gain?
People tend to look at pleadings as technical kinds of things, but when you really look at it they’re essential to an effective civil litigation practice. If you don’t follow up with them, you fall into bad habits or you follow bad precedents. Hopefully this seminar will help people understand the latest rules and requirements for pleadings and the case law that bears on it. It will not only refresh their memory of pleadings but may [also] improve it.”
What are going to be the key takeaways for people?
What I hope they’ll take away is a real understanding of how pleadings are being interpreted by the courts and what are the best practices that are currently being employed in drafting pleadings – plus some insight into what you’re trying to achieve with them.”
What are you looking forward to most about the program?
The thing I’m hoping we achieve with this is that people come away thinking pleadings are not dry and boring and merely technical things that you tick off to move on with your litigation. There are advocacy perspectives to take into account and you really have to know what the best practices are to make sure you’re asking for the proper remedies and you’re pleading the necessary facts and law to get you there.”
Is there anything else you want to add about the program?
I’m going to try to keep it as light as possible, because there’s almost a phobia of pleadings as being deathly boring. I’ve selected topics – like advocacy– that I thought take you out of the trench a little bit and lift your head up to think more expansively about it, not narrowly. … What I want to do is bring people up-to-date: what’s the latest case law saying, what does the Bench view as best practices, give them an example of what is currently the approach. … I think … it’s helpful to know what everyone else is doing.”
Presenters and Topics
James also shared a little snippet about what each speaker is covering.
Professor Barbara Billingsley discusses the “latest developments in case law” in a review of the most recent, salient court decisions regarding the purpose, preparation, and content of pleadings.
Ian Wachowicz explores “what role advocacy plays in drafting pleadings. Are they purely technical, to meet technical requirements to allow you to get the relief you want at the end of the proceedings? Or is there a persuasive element and role in them as well?”
Wendy Best QC considers pleadings from a family law perspective, something James sees as important because family law “pleadings and affidavits … are very different. … Normally pleadings in the non-family law section are minimalist … whereas family law pleadings tend to be more intricate and require particular averments that specifically relate to family law.”
W. Clarke Hunter QC, a senior litigator who frequently deals with complex litigation files, discusses a “medley of practical issues that arise in respect of pleadings and affidavits in the course of an action, including alternative pleading styles, the uses and abuses of relying on precedents, potential ethical issues, etc.”
Steven T. Robertson uses a pleading precedent to demonstrate what to do when you “actually put pen to paper … and how you draft them.”
Honourable Justice D. Yungwirth gives “the view of the rule of pleadings from the perspective of the Bench: how much weight they give to them, problems they see, things that could be done better or differently.”
The program then concludes with a panel session of all speakers. For more information on the topics discussed, view the program brochure.
Register Online
To secure your spot in this incredible program, register online now to attend Drafting Pleadings, Affidavits, and Orders in Edmonton (February 9) or Calgary (February 17).
