Valarie Matthews

2Hello, how's it going?

4Yes, I do.

6about Paper Chase today.

8Excuse me. Yes, I am a family lawyer. I've been doing family law now for 7 years. So I started in January 2016 and yeah, that's all I do. It's all I've been doing for a while now.

10Yeah. So we do all of it. And my practice encompasses all areas of family law. So for sure, cohabitation agreements, marriage contracts, and then also the bulk of it, I would say, is still sort of separations and divorce and the issues that arise on the breakdown of relationships, for sure.

12Yeah. So obviously domestic contracts are treated differently than your sort of standard contract. And so to the extent that in the context of negotiating outside, like you're trying to contract usually out of certain aspects of either the Divorce Act or the Family Law Act in Ontario. And so there isn't like necessarily consideration per se, but to the extent that you want the agreement to appear to be mutual and like some measure of compromise to be baked in, I guess that would be the consideration in terms of, you know, your standard contract terms. But, you know, when it's kind of when you start to see agreements that are too one-sided or too sort of, I'm going to just keep everything, but we're going to live happily ever after, like that's when You're like, what's— what was the point of that?

13That doesn't seem fair, right?

15Yeah, so in like, I guess people sort of know the terms that are used in sort of the normal, like, whatever you call it, society in terms of— Yeah,

17Like, there's sort of the common language that people use more loosely in terms of like prenup, like sometimes you even hear postnup, that sort of thing. And those tend to be, I would say, more American terms really. In Ontario, though, like, while we recognize what those terms mean, like, we would just call them all marriage contracts if people are entering into an agreement either before marriage or during marriage. You can get a marriage contract at any time. So it doesn't matter if you're already married. If your circumstances have either changed or something's happened that would warrant an agreement, you can do it at any time. And then if people are unmarried and sort of intend to stay unmarried, it would just be called a cohabitation agreement usually.

19Yes. Yeah, I grew up— I mean, we moved all over when I was younger, but I spent most of my time outside of Atlanta. I grew up there, did all my schooling.

21Yeah, I am. I am. Nice. Although I find if I say I'm from Atlanta, people understand that that's a city and not the metro area. Sometimes if you just say Georgia, they think somehow you're like from the country, which is not the case.

23I am. Yeah.

25It is. I mean, I think, well, in a lot of ways, but even just the way that Toronto as a city, I feel like it's a much more European-style city in terms of there's a lot of wealth concentrated, like from a socioeconomic standpoint, I guess. There's a lot of wealth concentrated within the city itself. And then sort of the suburbs tend to be— I mean, obviously, there's some very affluent suburbs, but like the city itself is quite lively. There's a lot of residences, all of those things. Atlanta, for a long time, was kind of just where people worked, and then everybody left at the end of the day. So there wasn't a lot of infrastructure, at least when I was like— I haven't lived there now for nearly 15 years, so it's changed a lot.

26For a long time, it was just really a business center, and people didn't really live in the city. But that's been changing, from what I understand. So

28Yeah.

30Yeah, go Dawgs!

32Business Administration.

34Yeah, I don't— I mean, I guess the short answer is I'm not entirely sure. I feel like I had taken, you know, we had requirements, language requirements. Obviously, it's not the same as in Canada in terms of the French and English. Like dual language type programs, but I was required to take 2 years of Spanish, okay, in high school, and I just didn't like it that much. Just generally, I didn't find it that interesting. And so then when I started university and I was like— and as part of my degree, I did have a language requirement as well, and I just had to— I was like, what am I gonna do? And I just thought Japanese would be really interesting and it would give me some interesting opportunities I ended up studying abroad in Japan for a summer and got to live with a family and everything.

35And so I sort of took it as like, what's the most unusual thing I could do? And that was kind of led me there, but there wasn't a like particular specific thing that made me go, oh yeah, Japanese, that's what I want. It's just kind of like, what's the most opposite? Let me do that.

37Probably not as much anymore because I've got 3 small children. So I have to like, my own wants and needs are no longer that relevant.

39yeah,

41okay,

43I did, yes. Yeah, I knew it.

45Oh my goodness, I should be worried then.

47Yeah, so my husband, well, now my husband is Canadian. He did his law degree like he's from Toronto originally, grew up here. He did his law degree at Windsor and then was doing his LLM at Harvard. So when I, in my second year, we ended up having trial advocacy together. And it was one of those, like, there used to be this winter term where, you know, you just took one class and it was basically for the month of January. It's like very focused and intensive. And so we were in the same like small group and, you know, basically saw each other every day and would have like lunch together. It was just one of those things over time.

49It is Ian. Yes. Okay.

51Yeah,

53I think I was definitely more stressed. Like, my sense was the LLM students were mostly there to party. Not across the board, but like there were— there was a lot less, I think, riding on their degrees because they already all had another degree. So they were just kind of there for a year hanging out. Like, there was a lot of— there was a lot of partying, I think, with the LL.M.

55Right, yeah.

57Oh my goodness, yeah.

59I have seen it, but it's been a very long time, so I have a limited memory of it.

61No, I actually— so my first year, this was like cruel and unusual punishment. They don't do it anymore. But my first year exams were actually after the Christmas break. So I had to go home and take all of my stuff with me over the holidays and just like study with my family enjoying themselves, you know, downstairs. So I was basically just locked in my like childhood bedroom studying, which was not fun. But yeah, it was—

63Okay, so I mean, I think it's probably very similar to what's in Canada. Obviously the subject, like the actual content is different, but you know, it's crim law, torts, property. I had— and like they were each one semester. There weren't any full, except for legal research and writing, like that was the only year-long course. Then what else is like— or no, constitutional law wasn't required for us I don't know if it is anymore. I don't know if that's still the case, but it wasn't required. Then what is it? Crim, property, torts. Now you're making me have to go dig out my transcript somewhere.

65Yes, civil procedure. What else would I have done? I feel like it was— it's all prescribed, right? You don't have to—

67What do you mean by summaries?

69But

71Like an outline.

73Some, some were and some weren't. So first year, I feel like there was mostly closed-book exams and mostly in class, like, so they were shorter. Like, in later years, there were some that were like take-homes, you know, you can have a couple of days, like, think about it, whatever. But yeah, I want to say they were all the sort of typical 3-hour sit there with your little blue book and you had to just You had your test, you had to write out all the answers.

75They're literally blue, but like basically exam

77Yeah, exactly. They're just like paper that you can write on it all standard form kind of thing.

79No, I feel like that at least when I was there, they were trying to make this change from that sort of paper chase type ethos, like where they wanted to appear to be friendlier, like, and were making efforts to sort of—

81Yeah, so I mean, I think they were really like striving to lose that image of being somehow like really awful and terrible place to be. And so a lot of like we had, I remember for my torts exam, like he gave us a sort of like practice exam in advance so everybody like would get comfortable with just the idea of how to take a law school exam. And you know, by my third year we didn't even have grades anymore, right? So like they got rid of grades And they basically, you know, I remember when I started during our, what do you call it? Not the introduction, but like, you know, where like all of the new students come and like the dean will come and talk to you and introduce you and all that.

82And just like say hi during like during that. So when I started, Dean Kagan, who's now Supreme Court Justice, she was the dean of the law school at the time. And, you know, she essentially just gave the speech where she was like, okay, look to your left, look to your right, like you're all here, you made it, like you're done, so you don't need to really compete anymore. Like there's this whole like, let's be nice and we're all— aren't we all great? Which is like not the reality on the ground obviously, but like that was kind of— they were trying to get everybody to feel like we're all in this together a bit more.

83So,

85No, for sure. It was like there were some, and I don't count myself among them, but like there were people there who were just amazing for a variety of reasons, whether it was things they had done prior to law school, like their, you know, sort of academic achievements and things in law school. But there were people who just thought about these, like all of the issues in a way that you're just like, oh my gosh, like, you're just on a different level, right? You're doing different things. You've got whatever, however your brain works, it's just different than other people. And I think, you know, there's obviously, it was just such a special environment that like, I think at the time, just the stress and pressure of trying to perform, I didn't appreciate it as much as I could have.

86But like, yeah, there were some really amazing people there who just like did so many fantastic things. So yeah.

88It's a trick question. I'm

90No, everybody is great. No, I think there are so many— that academic, that legal academy, legal academic work is a very particular kind of intelligence that I think the people who are really good at it are amazing and they're awesome. And, you know, but like, are they— they're not always the people who are going to be like the most, you know, have the most common sense, whatever. Anyway, you know, like there's lots of different kinds of intelligence. And I think that it's good that people can be recognized in lots of different ways.

92Yeah.

94Well, I mean, my family ultimately, because I put my husband there.

96No, that's all right. Yeah, I mean, I think it really did change, you know, and I'm sure they give this speech at like every law school, I don't know, but like, you know, it really does change the way you think and it really does prepare you to sort of you know, one of the things I say to students all the time is like, as lawyers, we're problem solvers, right? A lot of what we're doing isn't necessarily knowing the answer at the immediate time that the question is asked, but it's figuring out how to, you know, get to the answer, solve whatever problem is being presented, right? And so I think that being surrounded by people who are just really excellent and cared a lot about the work they were doing sort of ingrains that work ethic and that desire to also be really good at it.

97Like, I think that piece of it— I mean, I can't know because I never went to a different law school. But, you know, I think that that's something that definitely I took away from that experience for sure.

99In some ways. I mean, there aren't that many— there are some Canadian Harvard Law School grads, obviously, like more LLMs than JDs, but a bit of both. And I have kept in touch with some people, but I just find, given the nature of my work now and the types of referrals that I would want, like it's not the same, right, in terms of, you know, somebody I know who's in California, like my law school roommate lives in San Diego. I mean, of course we stay in touch, but like what is she like from a business perspective, it's a bit trickier. So yeah, it's more just personal connections, I would say, but there's a few people here that I know from law school.

101Yeah, yeah,

103Yes, I am called in New York, and I'm inactive now, but I was I did practice in Washington, D.C., so I was called in both of those jurisdictions.

105No, so actually the way that D.C. works is if you've taken, if you went to a U.S. law school, it's different for obviously foreign grads, but if you've gone to a U.S. law school, you can take basically any of the other state bar exams and waive into the D.C. bar because, like, there's so much transitory— like, there's so much transition between— a lot of people come there, obviously, to work for the government and all that sort of thing. So for lawyers, they try to make it as easy as possible if you're from somewhere else that you can kind of come without having to take another bar exam.

107I always wanted, I always knew I was going to go to DC. Like, that's where I worked in my summers. So I just, that was where I wanted to be. I took the New York bar exam basically because I thought, well, if there's anywhere else, it would probably be New York. So because I knew I could waive into the DC bar, I thought for like just purely practical reasons that at least if I was called in New York and DC, I had the option of either.

109So I moved here in August 2013, so it's almost, it's almost 10 years now,

111Do you have it?

113I have some who have like dual citizenship, but they're almost all people who for the most part have lived most of their lives in Canada. I did have a client last year who was from the States and had like similarly moved here for his spouse. But yeah, it's not— I don't think people seek me out for that reason.

115Yeah, I mean, I guess similarly there are people who I know here who just for whatever reason are Americans and they're here. So you know, we've— like, I know people here who are Americans, but I— like, that's not the primary thing that I'm— like, I'm not in any groups that are specific to, like, being a U.S. lawyer or anything like that. So,

117Yeah.

119Thank you. But

121it. Thank you. You

123Oh, nice.

125But it's hard to find people who are familiar with the southern states. Most people who are US citizens here are from the Northeast.

127Yeah.

129people get upset when I— they're like, you're not from Georgia, you don't sound like it. I'm like, I really am. I'm sorry. All

131yeah,

133Yeah.

135Yeah.

137Oh, you've got the whole crew there.

139Yeah.

141yeah, I mean, is it for the elite? I think that we are— I guess maybe I would see it a little differently in terms of saying, you know, it's one of the preeminent family law firms I think probably in Canada, but of course, you know, we are based in Ontario and practice Ontario law. But I think Martha's reputation sort of is what has led to the firm being so well recognized because, as you may know, she was lead counsel on the MVH, the gay marriage case back in the day. And so, you know, I think she gained a lot of recognition for her work for LGBT rights and her position on a lot of sort of equality and family equality issues.

142And so Martha is really sort of the linchpin, like none of this exists without her. And then when she— like, she was originally a partner at Epstein Cole. And then when she left to start her own firm, Heather was actually a, I think, just either ending her articles or had been a summer student. I forget the exact timing of it, but basically it must have been her articles because I think Heather was getting like in the position of maybe being hired back, and then she decided, you know, she found out Martha was leaving and said, wait, I want to come. And so Heather's been there, you know, since the beginning and, you know, was really Martha's sort of right hand for a very long time and then has obviously become sort of recognized in her own right.

143And so, yeah, I mean, they are two just very incredible people to work with and work for. And certainly I don't think our work is only for elite people. But of course, just given this state of family law generally, I guess legal fees are just high everywhere. If we're talking about access to justice, that's a slightly different situation. Situation. But it's expensive to have a lawyer. So to the extent that people come to us, they tend to have some resources at least available to them. But that does— I mean, I do legal aid work. A few people at our firm do legal aid. All of us sort of try to give back in different ways.

144But it's— yeah, I think in family law, maybe more so than just general civil litigation, that access to justice piece is always an issue. For sure.

147it.

149Sure. Yeah I mean, I will just start by saying my husband's a civil litigator, okay? And so I also, like, to the— I don't know if you would describe it as a calling, but I also can't imagine him doing anything else. Like, he loves it. So anyway, to each his own. All right. It's not something that interests me in the slightest. But so I think a table— like, sorry, a typical day in sort of my life, obviously every day is different. And that's probably what it is, how it is for all litigators to some extent. But, you know, if I don't otherwise have a hearing. Sorry, my thing is frozen. Are you able to see me?

151Okay, I'm not sure what's going on.

153Okay, I'll just keep talking. I just don't know.

155Okay so I guess for a typical day, you know, if there's a lot of calls in terms of speaking with clients preparing drafts, if I, you know, I always have number of files that are actively in litigation. And so, for instance, next week I'm in court 3 days next week for a variety of conferences. I actually had one motion settled. So luckily that's been resolved. But basically this week was a bunch of deadlines for things due for those appearances next week. And then speaking with clients about strategy, and how we're going to move their cases forward. On some files, if they're sort of at a standstill or at a point where it makes sense to start discussing offers, I'm doing that work.

156I do— I mean, I'm very involved with the student program at our firm, and so a lot of my work is also working with the articling students as I'm an articling principal. So working with articling students to make sure they're sort of set up and have what they need to succeed. Succeed, and then sort of helping with, you know, getting things going for recruiting next year and keeping that whole process going. So it's kind of a constant, just like internal, external, like everything that needs to get done all the time in, you know, 8 hours. So yeah.

158For sure, for sure.

160So I was doing more like antitrust and competition law, and that was very— I mean, in the states, because the enforcement regime is quite different, like it was more like litigation, even though it's a very regulatory practice. But like there were a lot of aspects of it that were similar to what you would do in litigation. But, you know, we had these huge files with huge clients. The firm I worked for was very involved, like it was based in Silicon Valley. So there was a lot of like large tech companies that they worked for. And so, you know, if the Federal Trade Commission is asking you to like do all this disclosure, you know, you're just managing like— and I was also very junior at the time, obviously, too.

161So a lot of what I was doing was like document production and like managing these huge document requests and things like that. And so, you know, I certainly was the least experienced person, you know, at that time because I was only like 1 or 2 years out of law school and was just kind of learning the ropes before I moved here. So yeah, it was very different. And, you know, like, family law is more of a volume practice than I would say your typical civil litigation file. So, you know, at any one time I've probably got 40 or 50 active files that I'm managing. And sometimes my docket, it's like, it's, you know, I'll touch 15 different matters in a day, whereas, like, you know, my husband will be like, I worked on 2 things all day, right?

162Like, it took all day, but it was like 2 things. So it's a very different— like, it's just a very different approach, for sure.

164Oh, that's interesting. You know, at a base level, probably not that different. I do think there's still, like, I think there is a little more expectation of civility in Canada than some of what I experienced. Like, obviously there are still problems with civility in Ontario. I mean, I can only speak for in Ontario, obviously, in Toronto specifically, but You know, I think that there's a bit, maybe just because there's so many more lawyers or so many more just like random, like, you know, in Toronto at least, I find like the bar is still quite small and obviously there are those people who don't have the best reputations, but like there's still a real focus on trying to maintain your reputation as much as possible, where I think in the US it's a little easier to fly under the radar sometimes because there's just so many other people around.

165So I just, I do think that like in general, at a very high level, it's probably people are a bit nicer here. But again, I didn't practice for that long in the US either. So it's hard to say. I practiced much longer here than I did there, obviously. So it's hard to draw any like strict comparisons. Yeah.

167So not my practice specifically. Like, as you might imagine, I mean, it's the case that of course 99% of things settle, right? Even if you have a trial scheduled. I haven't done that many trials for a number of reasons. One, I've had several mat leaves that have just like caused— like my timing has always just been a little bit off. Even if I've had matters that did go to trial, I wasn't available for it. But then also, you know, for the vast majority of people, it's just prohibitively expensive to have a trial. And so, you know, even if we're sort of tracking towards one, almost always the advice is like, do you truly want to do this?

168Right. And I think, you know, there's a lot more ADR practice or alternative dispute resolution in family law as well. So there's a lot of mediation, a lot of arbitration. So it's really a balance, but I know, I mean, for people who can afford it, like the, you know, so for instance, Heather and Martha's clients, like they have trials more often because they have clients who can afford to pay a significant amount of money for them to be available for trial, right? So it's a bit different.

170Yeah.

172So, I mean, at a high level, that's right. Those are the like buckets of things that are going to— like most issues are going to fall within those buckets, those categories. But obviously within each of those things, like The thing that I find really unique and interesting about family law is that even though the categories are kind of the same over all cases, you know, the individual facts are so like— are so— there's such a variety of different facts, obviously. And so for people, you know, it's nice to be able to say, oh, child support, spousal support, right? But if you have a self-employed person who's running their own business, who you know, has the ability to not pay themselves all of the money that the business makes, then you have to figure out what their income is for support purposes.

173And so, you know, there's all of these sort of details that— and like issues that come up out of what otherwise is a straightforward process, right? Like if you have someone who's a mailman and a teacher, that's going to be very easy, right? Any T4 employee whose main asset is their house and they've got a couple of kids, like, you can do that in your sleep essentially if you know the basics of family law. Like, anybody could handle that. It's, you know, where it gets really complicated is people who have like large family trusts or a family business or, you know, they're self-employed. And that's, you know, that starts bringing up all these issues that don't fit neatly into any of these categories because you can't just say, okay, well, his T1 says he made $200,000 last year, but, you know, okay, his corporation's like pre-tax income is $3 million.

174He only paid himself $200,000. So what actually is available for support purposes? Like, you're having to look into all of this financial information. And we work with a lot of experts and accountants and business evaluators and tax people to try to handle these issues for people who are who don't sort of fit your more standard, you know, T4 employee mold.

176Yeah.

178Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I think a lot of times what I say to clients is obviously a marriage is a romantic partnership, but it's an economic partnership as well. right? So the longer you're married, the more intertwined your finances are, the more, you know, there's a dependency relationship between two people. All of those things are the kinds of issues that come up in terms of determining, you know, at the end of the day, the government's main objective is to keep people off their payroll, right? They don't want you to get divorced and one person ends up with all the assets and the other person's living on the street, right? Or on the, on social assistance.

179So you know, there's these obligations are created for spouses to support each other within and after marriage, right?

182So I think that's, you know, maybe where the analogy between tax law and family law breaks down a bit, because for sure, I mean, given that tax is a purely regulatory— like it was created by the government, right? Like we could just have no tax system and it would be really simple. But that's like they're constantly making changes and tweaking things and adding loopholes and exemptions and whatever, right? So it becomes this really complicated regulation. But for family law, the legislation itself quite simple actually. And if you are, like I was saying, you know, two T4 employees where your, you know, major asset is your house, maybe you have a cottage, like you have some RRSPs, you got a couple of kids, like that— those are actually the people who fit really well into the system the way it's designed.

183And like, it— the amount of conflict, like the government has tried to create a regime that's going to reduce the amount of conflict in terms of the child support guidelines and things that take a lot of the guesswork out of things. It's just like, you're going to pay money. That's it. You don't really have a choice when it comes to child support. I think that where the complexity comes in is just where you have families now that are sometimes extremely wealthy, have these really complicated assets, have tax structures. Right. They've used— they've utilized the tax law in a way that benefits them. But that then when you're trying to apply this family law regime, that's not— that's not as flexible.

184That's where a lot of that complexity comes in on the family law side. So it's more the facts on the ground than the legislation itself. Yeah.

186So you would think so, and a lot do, of course. But you know, even when there is a marriage contract or prenuptial agreement in place, it— like, those are one of the most challenged contracts because, as you can imagine, when you're doing a marriage contract, especially in advance of somebody becoming married, they are— you're doing a bit of crystal ball gazing. You're trying to guess what's going to happen over the next 30 years of someone's life. And so you can't account for everything. And so sometimes somebody has incredibly good fortune over the course of the marriage. In terms of people who are generally prepared and have the contract in place beforehand, if you have a lot of family wealth, most likely you already knew coming into the marriage that you were going to have to have some contract in place to protect your family's assets.

187But for people who are just extremely lucky kind of during the course of a marriage, they don't always have that foresight. Right. And so it's only after when things break down that they realize, oh, wait, like that was maybe, maybe I should put some more thought into this before or at a different, you know, whatever. So, yeah, there's still a lot of conflict around a lot of those things because, you know, especially if you have one partner who's mainly been the breadwinner and they've, you know, worked their way up and done all those things, there's just a lot of resentment. Like, whatever, you have to deal with all of those human emotions that I know you don't like, but that are a regular, you know, part of my job.

188And trying to just manage people's expectations about how the process is gonna unfold, you know, as best as you can.

190do you think? It's the worst idea. No I think, you know, family law is amazing in that, like, if you are curious about people, if you like a little bit of drama, You know, if you are general, and I mean that in the best way possible, it's just like, there are days where you have things that happen that it's just like, you couldn't make it up. Right. You just, you have some conversation with the client or where you're just like, these people are insane. Right. And not, and like, it's just, but that's what I love about it is because I get to meet so many different kinds of people. I get to like genuinely feel like at least some of the time I'm helping that I'm like, doing good in the world.

191And you know, I think that for students who are interested, especially if you like litigation, like there's a lot more on-your-feet experience in, you know, I mean, criminal law is kind of the same, but maybe more so in criminal law. But like there, there's the process in family law is much more sort of regimented in terms of the court, your interaction with the court. And so there's just more opportunities to be in court, speak to judges, deal with the court process. If those are things that you're interested in as a student, I think you should really be considering family law seriously because you can't— you get to do all the strategic thinking, the nitty-gritty of legal research and trying to figure out some of these gray areas, especially when you have high income earners and self-employed people.

192It's not all figured out. There is a lot of really— there are a lot of really interesting issues that come up on a day-to-day basis. And yeah, I just— every day something happens that I just always sort of amazes me and interests me. And I find like the bar is also very supportive because I think we all recognize like in general how difficult this work can be. And it's not all sunshine and roses, obviously. But there are also those cases where there is abuse. There are some really difficult issues of family violence. And so I just find the lawyers generally are also just very aware of the difficulty of the work. And if anybody were to just happen upon a group of family lawyers, you'd hear a lot of complaining.

193But it's all on the surface of, processing what we're going through and supporting each other. And I think that that's, you know, for me, it's been a fantastic area of law to practice. And like, I've got a lot of wonderful colleagues that obviously I work with and are on the other side of my files. And I've just— I've loved it. It's been fantastic.

195Thank you so much. I really appreciate you actually, you know, responding to my tweet. It was— didn't know if it would work, but there we are.

197Okay.