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Greetings to all of you enrolled in or considering the Family Law exam as an NCA elective. In this blog, I will share my experience with and tips for taking the Ontario Family Law NCA exam, hoping it will assist you in making decisions about your electives and exam preparation.
Initial Impressions Family law wasn't my first or even second choice of electives, but it became one of the only options available for my last NCA exam sitting in May 2019. Not wanting to delay my NCA requirements any further, I decided to take family law despite my preference for another subject. While I don't foresee practicing family law, I am grateful for the knowledge I gained about how Family Law operates in Canada.
Reasons to Take This Exam If you have an interest in Family Law practice, this exam is an obvious fit. However, students with other practice interests might also find the subject interesting and useful. For example, those passionate about property or estate/trust law will appreciate the overlap when discussing marital property in cases of separation or divorce. However, if your interest lies in criminal law and you expect to explore topics like domestic violence and assault, you may not find much focus on these aspects in the NCA exam materials. Although they are discussed in part of one module, criminal aspects are not the main emphasis.
Additionally, Family Law is part of the Ontario Bar curriculum, so you will inevitably encounter this subject matter at some point. If you plan ahead, this exam can serve as a foundation for your Bar preparation.
Difficulty and Key Focus Areas The exam is predominantly procedural, emphasizing your understanding of the legal processes involved in obtaining a divorce, separation, or support order. During my exam in May, it consisted entirely of problem questions with little room for theoretical discussions.
The exam itself was reasonable, but mastering the extensive amount of information required for this course can be daunting and occasionally repetitive. Covering both provincial and federal aspects of the law, it is easy to get lost in the finer details and struggle to draw a clear line between what falls under federal jurisdiction versus provincial jurisdiction.
Challenges with the Assigned Textbook In my opinion, the assigned textbook is subpar. It lacks organization, is highly repetitive, and can be confusing as it alternates between federal and provincial case law and rules without proper framing or warning. I often found myself Googling to clarify my understanding and re-organizing my notes into a more logical flow by grouping topics by jurisdiction (federal vs. provincial) rather than following the book's presentation.
Things to Be Mindful of If you decide to use the assigned textbook, note that many cases discussed in the main text are not decisions from Ontario or Federal courts. While influential in Ontario and likely to be followed, these cases are not binding precedent in Ontario. The footnotes often provide citations for similarly decided cases in Ontario if the referenced case comes from another province.
Understand the distinctions between Federal and Provincial law and jurisdiction thoroughly. Familiarize yourself with the types of family breakdowns that belong in federal court versus provincial court to correctly apply the appropriate body of law to each problem question. For instance, divorce falls under federal jurisdiction, while spousal separations can be handled by a provincial court.
Grasp how the courts calculate the division of property, considering that rules differ for property owned before marriage and property acquired during marriage. Be aware of tricky rules related to more complex types of property, such as retirement funds and assets left via wills. Although not always tested, this area is worth studying carefully as it is often subject to examination.
Finally, understand the difference between interim support orders and permanent support orders, and how spouses can request changes to orders in case of new information or changed circumstances. Broadly, the courts are more lenient with interim orders, which are temporary stop-gap solutions.
Remember, the entire course is fair game for the exam, so don't ignore anything I haven't mentioned here. However, I believe these areas are potentially tricky and warrant extra time and attention.
Additional Resources If you're seeking resources to aid your study or exam preparation, I have posted my comprehensive, color-coded Family Law (Ontario) notes on the NCA Tutor™ website. These notes were created during my cover-to-cover reading of the assigned textbook and helped me pass my exam in May 2019. They have also been reviewed by NCA Tutor's Family Law instructor.
As a bonus, I have included a quick course-overview mind map I made during my studies to visualize the connections between Federal and Provincial legislation.
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