Canadian Lawyer

10 A p r i l 2 0 1 4 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m RegIonal wRap-up waIt for MotIons droppIng In toronto courts o ntario Superior Court Chief Jus- tice Heather Smith says her goal of reducing long wait times for civil motions to four months "has been largely met" in Toronto. After reports last year of long delays for motions and trials, lawyers are reporting some improvement for short motions but say it still takes too long to book long motions and trials. Last month, Smith told Law Times review efforts initiated in September 2013 and guided by Regional Senior Justice Geoffrey Morawetz divided the work into two phases. "The first phase focused on reducing the wait times for civil long motions in Toronto. The goal of Phase I was to reduce the extended 'times out' to civil long motions in Toronto down to less than four months by the end of 2013. That goal has been more than met — by the end of December 2013, the wait time for a long motion had been significantly reduced to considerably less than four months," said Smith. The outcomes are a result of new scheduling practices that involved increas- ing the scheduling capacity by 66 per cent as of November 2013 through adjusting judicial resources and scheduling prac- tices — most notably a new practice direc- tion eliminating "placeholder" motions and applications. Parties scheduling a civil motion must now file a notice of motion within 10 days and pay a fee or lose the hearing date. But for civil litigator James Morton, the impact of the change has mostly been on scheduling short motions. The new requirement effectively cleared up the traf- fic of lawyers booking motions "on the off chance that they'll need it," he said, but the change isn't noticeable for long motions, possibly because lawyers never booked them just in case they'd need them. Litigator Geoffrey Adair, who report- ed "modest improvements" in booking motions before masters, says quantifying the change has been difficult thanks to what he calls "erratic scheduling" that sometimes results in earlier motion dates and other times that can yield long delays. He suggested requiring a notice of motion may not be sufficient to deter placeholder motions. Instead, the courts should require a party to file an entire record of motion 10 days after booking a hearing date. For Daniel Reisler, of Reisler Franklin LLP, discouraging people from booking motions isn't a solution to the delays. The fact that lawyers book motions early in case they need them later on shows just how difficult it is to schedule them when they do need them, he said. "They've instituted changes that are not designed to shorten the time period for having a motion heard; they're designed to dis- courage people from bringing motions." Booking short motions is faster now but is "never less than six months," according to Reisler. He said the cur- rent scheduling system lacks transpar- ency. Several lawyers echoed similar sen- timents about having to spend hours at the long motion scheduling court just to schedule a motion date, something they say should change. In the meantime, the civil review pro- cess is continuing at Greater Toronto Area courthouses including Brampton and Newmarket, said Smith. — YAMrI tADDese yamri.taddese@thomsonreuters.com CrowNs lookiNg for better meNtal-health support a s prosecutions get more complex Ontario's Crown attorneys are under increased stress, say lawyers who've made the switch from prosecu- tion to defence work. "Situations arise where emergency treatment is needed, and if it's not covered, it should be," says Anthony Moustacalis, a former Crown and now president of the Crimi- nal Lawyers' Association. The Ministry of the Attorney General should cover the cost of mental-health treatment for Crown attorneys whose condition was due to work-related stress, they say. The comments follow news the former president of the Ontario Crown Attorneys' Association resigned over his controversial payment of rehabilitation costs for an assistant Crown attorney using the organization's credit card. According to documents obtained by Law Times, Scott Rogers paid $20,000 to a medical facility for the care of an association member who showed signs of alcoholism, including "troubling behaviour in the work environment," and disappeared for three days. The assistant Crown attorney — who was "in the danger zone," according to the docu- ments — had participated in a contested bail hearing in which the accused got out of jail and murdered someone, the documents show. In his resignation letter, Rogers said he was wrong for not discussing the issue with the board but didn't apologize for the Daniel Reisler says discouraging bookings is not the solution. Anthony Moustacalis

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